Page 72 of The Pakhan’s Stolen Bride

Static. Cell towers dropping.

My mind begins to churn, calculating the threat. Is it the Russo family capitalizing on our chaos? Viktor Russo has wanted to seize our western ports for three years. If his scouts spotted the Volvo leaving the estate, this is the perfect opportunity to strike. Or maybe they are working together.

Suddenly, my private cell phone vibrates hard in my tactical vest pocket, the sharp buzz cutting through the static on the radios.

I pull it out, my fingers slick with sweat as I unlock the screen. An incoming message from an unknown, encrypted routing number.

There is an image file. It loads slowly, the pixelated colors resolving into a shot taken inside the back of a dark vehicle.

Via and Ekaterina.

They are slumped against each other on a dark vinyl bench, their eyes closed, their heads resting together. Their wrists are bound tightly with thick black plastic zip-ties. Via’s face is pale, a small smear of black grease marking her forehead, her cream coat torn at the shoulder. Ekaterina looks like she is sleeping, but the plastic around her small wrists is tight enough to turn her skin white.

Below the image, a single line of text appears.

This is for daring to take what’s mine.

My blood turns to liquid fire. The room disappears behind a red, blinding fog. It isn't a Russo hit. It’s him.

"He’s got them," I whisper, my voice barely a thread in the noisy room.

"Ilya, look at the gate monitor." Dmitri’s voice is suddenly tight, completely losing the professional calm he’s maintained all morning.

I look up at the bank of security screens on the main wall.

The camera at the main entrance of the estate, the heavy, iron-reinforced gates that lead to the highway, shows a massive, grey utility truck barreling down the gravel driveway. It’s a twelve-ton construction dump truck, its steel bed loaded with heavy, dark grey containers that are smoking under the pale sky.

It isn't slowing down. It’s accelerating, its massive tires throwing up a high spray of dirty gravel as it aims straight for the iron barrier.

"Thermite," I rasp, my eyes widening as I see the white, blinding sparks shooting from the containers in the truck bed.

"Get down!" Dmitri screams, throwing himself behind the steel console.

Before the first captain can even hit the floor, chaos erupts.

A blinding, white-hot flash of light obliterates the security monitors, turning the entire war room into a screaming furnace of pure energy. A split second later, a deafening, bone-shattering BOOM shakes the foundation of the house, the sheer force of the blast throwing me twenty feet across the concrete floor like a ragdoll.

My body hits the heavy steel gun rack, the metal snapping under my weight as I slam into the concrete wall behind it.

The ceiling collapses. Massive blocks of reinforced concrete, plaster, and iron rebar rain down in the dark, a thick, suffocating wave of grey dust and heat filling the room. A heavy steel beam from the overhead cable tray falls straight across my legs, pinning my thighs to the floor with a crushing, agonizing pressure that makes the bones scream.

My ears are ringing with a high, painful whine that drowns out every other sound. I can’t breathe, my lungs filled with the hot, chemical scent of burnt thermite, sulfur, and pulverized plaster. I try to move, to push the heavy steel beam off my legs, but my left hand is useless, my fingers broken, my shoulder dislocated from the impact.

I cough, a thick, hot rush of blood rising to my lips and running down my chin in a dark streak.

"Dmitri..."

Dmitri is lying ten feet away, his face covered in white plaster dust, a long, jagged piece of glass from the monitor embedded deep in his chest. He isn't moving. His eyes are wide, glassy, and staring blankly at the burning ceiling. Lev is gone, completely buried under a massive pile of concrete near the radio desk, his hand the only thing visible, sticking out from the rubble like a dead branch.

The entire war room is a ruin of fire, smoke, and blood.

Ekaterina. Via. My empire.

The realization hits my chest with a force that is far more agonizing than the steel beam crushing my legs. In a single afternoon, he had taken everything. He’d taken my sister, the only person in this world I had left to love. He’d taken my bride, and he’d burned my house to the ground, leaving me pinned under the rubble of my own fortress like a trapped animal.

It’s the greenhouse all over again.

I’m seven years old, pinned under the iron bench, watching the smoke rise, holding a hand that is slowly turning cold.