Gregori Fyodorov V.
“Are you serious?”
It escaped my lips as a scorching whisper.
“What?” Elena volleyed her gaze between me and the laptop. “What do you mean? What’s?—”
She wisely shut up. Attuned to reading me this much, she had to see how absolutely enraged I was.
“Are you fuckingserious?” I shot to my feet, glaring at the screen.
“Adrik? What’s…” She bounced her panicked gaze back and forth again, watching me as my breaths grew more labored as anger consumed me, and the screen as if she couldn’t begin to comprehend what she’d done wrong.
She hadn’t.
She didn’t have a clue what that name meant. What it represented.
No. It has to be wrong.
It can’t be him.
He’s dead. He was killed in the explosion after he’d murdered my grandparents and almost killed my father.
“Adrik?” she asked again, backing up as if she were debating the need to rush out of the room.
“Shut up,” I growled. Pointing at the laptop, I shook my head. “You’re serious.”
She nodded, cringing as she watched me.Now, she’d see me as a monster, so livid and stunned like this. “That’s the name I was led to,” she said carefully.
Fury charged through me, and I damned her for having to fear me like this.
“Leave it here and get out.” I paced, needing to take this news to my brothers and cousins immediately. For years, over twenty years—two decades!—Uncle Gregori had been a stain on our past. A previous stain. He wasdead. He had to be dead, killed as a side effect of his own crimes and malice.
But if he’s not…
If he’s still alive…
I dragged my hands through my hair and gripped it.
Fuck. Fucking fuck!
More than anyone else in the world, the news of Dmitri Volkov’s failing health would come as a godsend to his murderous younger brother.
Elena hadn’t left yet. She sat there, watching me with worry and confusion. And no small part of fear.
“Get out! Go!” I yelled, pointing at the door.
I had to dismiss her. I couldn’t afford to worry about her. I had no time to stress about whether I was scaring her and freaking her out. She mattered. In other circumstances, it would’ve bothered me greatly to be the cause of her feeling so cornered and threatened. She deserved better.
But not from me.
Not now and not like this.
“Go,” I repeated once more as I snatched my phone off the desk to call for a meeting.
I texted the group thread that consisted of my brothers and two cousins.
Adrik:Meet in the office. NOW.
