He nodded, a faint bob of his head as I cradled him against me. “He’s never wanted to rule in the shadow of your father’s success. He wants to make his own power.”
I shook my head, so livid I could snap. There was no way to create new power. He had to harness what was already there, through negotiations and deals and treating his allies well while holding his enemies accountable for their sins.
“Years, Carina. All these years, and some of us have watched how he’d mock you and ridicule what you said. Every one of those warnings you’d given him. Then he’d dismiss your concerns. Like when he first said he wanted to get in with the group overseas.”
I frowned, looking up at Lev as he ran up. He must have just arrived because Dean was still beckoning him closer.
“A group overseas?” I asked. I believed him when he said he didn’t have a name for this new “friend” Arturo wanted to make, but there had to be some clues, some identifiers. Something that would help us.
“Overseas,” he said. “Someone amassing power through a network of companies and small militias.”
“Anetwork?” I asked, knowing this had to be Gregori. He could’ve worded it any other way, but this was what he’d said.
“A Russian’s network. Someone… from a Bratva…” He coughed and didn’t stop. With every ragged inhale and exhale he endured, his chest rattled and his body shook. Once he calmed from the fit, he moaned quietly, like an animal.
Gregori.
It had to be him.
But I couldn’t beg him for more clues or details. A couple of slow and shallow breaths puffed out of him, and then he didn’t inhale again.
He was gone.
He’d died in my arms, a messenger who’d come bearing the news I never wanted to hear.
My brother wasn’t carrying on the legacy of power my father had built. He was throwing it all away.
Letting the runners be loaned out. Engaging in shoddy deals and lousy handoffs. Not caring if the elder runners were dead or alive. Maybe things had all gone down poorly with this specific handoff in such a way that it had nothing to do with him personally, but I was too furious to give him the shadow of the doubt anymore.
All this time, I’d tried to coach him to do what was right, to stay away from bad deals and the lure of more riches that were dangled in front of his eyes by those we should’ve avoided.
He’d lied to me. Mocked me. Dismissed me and finally banished me.
He’s ruined it all.
And I wasn’t there to fix it and save a single damn thing.
Rage boiled hotter in my blood as I processed all that Enrique shared.
Arturo’s partner had to be Gregori, and so long as they schemed against the people I was coming to see as my new family, the new members of operations I could work with, I would do all I could to stop this network and anyone else who would dare to attack.
21
MAKSIM
Carina didn’t let herself stay upset for long after Enrique died. Or she wasn’t letting herself express any grief, bottling it in and funneling that raw, angry energy to use later.
I arrived with Adrik since I’d been out with him at the time. He came with me and demanded to know what was going on. Dean was most informative, telling us both what happened while the guards and Lev moved Enrique’s body. Carina went with them, insisting on helping with the burial.
Similar to how she’d acted at our wedding, she locked down with a distance that warned everyone to back off. Even me.
She didn’t want to be coddled.
She didn’t want to talk.
She didn’t want a hug.
I let her be, respecting that she clearly felt the necessity to be hands-on and assist with Enrique’s death. For the rest of the day,I hovered close by and supervised that she was holding up well all throughout the burial and cleanup.
