Page 6 of Black Ledger

I gritted my teeth and glowered. Sometimes there was far more power in silence than in any words. But Kazimir continued anyway.

“Or I may begin to question if you’re the right man for the job.”

I raised one eyebrow slowly and laced my words with venom. “Is that a threat?”

Kazimir shrugged. “Merely an observation.” He was the least afraid of me. Kazimir was both the most muscular and the tallest at the table. With sheer brutal force, he could take any of us. But luckily for me, I always outsmarted him, and I had a nice right hook too.

We’d been rivals as children and were rivals now. Frustratingly, Xeniya had always gotten along far too well with him.

She had loved him, and I hated him for it.

If I could get away with killing him, I very well might. But I couldn’t kill my underbosses without a just cause.

Well, I could, if I wanted a future mutiny. But I played long games, and it would be far better for me to win Kazimir over than start internal strife.

Leon leaned forward and slapped his palms on the table hard. “This is why we need war, Severin. We need to strike and strike them hard while we can. We need to rip them limb from limb.”

“Which would be a great idea,” Nika cut in. “If we actually knew what or who we were dealing with. Do you plan to shoot into the dark?”

Leon let out a quiet, humorless breath. “Since when do we take strategy from analysts?” His gaze slid slowly, deliberately, cruelly to Nika. “Or did I miss the part where we started inviting them to the table?”

Leon didn’t just hate that Nika was an analyst; he hated that she was allowed a seat at the table. But truthfully, I would prefer Nika’s counsel to Leon’s anytime and anywhere. Nika was levelheaded, brilliant, and strategic.

Unlike the ancient leaders at the table, I didn’t consider women lesser.

Leon, on the other hand, was a blunt, overused hammer, on its last legs. Unfortunately—mostly for me—Leon had the loyalty of his men, so I had to appear to appease him.

Slowly, I lifted my whiskey to my lips and took a sip. This meeting had nearly exhausted its usefulness, and I was starting to lose patience. I wanted only my inner circle, but politics required everyone.

I turned to Dimitri. “All right, Morozov, dig. I want everything. Tear through my father’s life and anyone else you deem necessary.” My gaze moved from Dimitri to Nika. “And Morozova, look into these disappearances. Find patterns and see if you can predict who might be next. So, as Leon so aptly put it, we can go to war.”

With that, I planted my hands on the wooden table, stood up, and strode out of the room. They’d follow.

Chapter Four

Xeniya Morozova

Age 35

It was Target Practice Tuesday.

The day of the week when I liked to chain up my dolls and throw knives at them while they whimpered and begged me to let them go.

At the moment, I had seven dolls I liked to dress up, dismember, and play with.

They, however, were not very fond of our tea parties. I wasn’t really sure why. I’d made them drink the equivalent of three cups of prune juice once, and they only shit their brains out for a couple of hours.

I’d done far worse than that to them.

Aleksandr, for instance, now had to pee with a catheter.

Luckily, my partner in crime was Neeve Callahan, an Irish mafia princess and doctor who had also been taken, raped, and tortured by the Lethean Order. She made keeping them alive much easier.

They’d held us for months that felt like years, and years that felt like an eternity.

It was time to return the favor.

“Oh, they don’t seem happy today,” Neeve said, staring at the three men we had tied to the opposite wall, each affixed to a dartboard.