Page 11 of Violent Pawn

The following day, Zeno is ready to enact war on the Bratva, except I should be the one he murders.

Tequila has some fan-fucking-tastic benefits.

Drunk off my ass, it’s an excuse to avoid admitting the truth to my best friend and dealing with the downfall of it.

The Commission denies Zeno his rightful role, making Elio interim Capo until Zeno is older. They’ve forbidden us from attacking the Bratva too, which gives me a while longer to determine how to admit my fuck-up to Zeno.

Soon.

7

ANASTASIA

Back inside Moscow, Papa has been locked away with the other Elite members. Even Dimitri and Lev can’t get answers.

Days pass, and Papa wanders around on edge but staunchly avoids me.

Bratva business is all he says one day, which means do not ask or else.

Whatever happened in Poland, I didn’t have to lose another piece of my soul to the likes of Jakob Nowak, so there’s some positivity. And the strange guy who helped me has lingered in my mind for weeks.

He saved me. He could have captured me or used the other two to do it. Or stepped aside while they did the work. Instead, he instructed me to hit him, equipped me with a weapon, and urged me to run.

If only I got his name…

All I know for certain is that I’ll never see him again.

…Until I do. In the most unlikely of ways, at the most unlikely of times, in a future I never believed possible.

8

NERO

Days turn to weeks.

Weeks turn to months.

Months turn to years.

Zeno becomes a Capo of the Cosa Nostra.

I become his second-in-command.

Alcohol becomes my second-in-command.

His hatred over the Bratva takes him into enemy territory, where he targets the new Pakhan: Ursin Volkov’s daughter, Vanessa—also known as the brunette from that photo.

Self-hatred eats my soul. I’m a coward, unable to admit the truth to my best friend. Basically my brother.

After Zeno falls in love with Vanessa, war with the Bratva ends.

Meanwhile, I’m faced with my fucking past. The face of an angel, the body of sin.

Anastasia Petrov, one of Vanessa’s Elite. My sparkly angelo.

The source of my guilt

Also the answer to ending it.