Chapter 176 176
Chapter 176 176
So I pick up the phone. “You have five seconds to tell me who you are, how you got this number, and why I shouldn’t have you killed,” I snarl.
“Only five seconds for all that?”
The voice on the other side of the line hits me like a sucker punch.
It can’t be. It’s not possible.
But it is. Because there’s no one else that voice could possibly belong to. “April,” I rasp. “You’re okay.”
“Kind of?” She laughs awkwardly. All this hell breaking loose, and she laughs. My woman was always the strongest soldier among us. “I’m in mafia jail.”
“In what?” A thousand questions crowd my mind. “Wait—how are you calling me? Where are they keeping you?”
“We don’t have time,” she cuts me off. Suddenly, her voice fills with urgency. “Matvey, it’s Yuri. He’s the mole. He’s working with Carmine, and they… They have our daughter.”
I grit my teeth. Somehow, April got hold of a phone. She went to God knows what pains to secure that, to dial my number and warn me…
And it’s too late.
“I know. I swear to you, April, I won’t let anyone harm either of you. Not Carmine, and not…” My mouth fills with bitterness. “Not Yuri. He’ll pay for what he’s done.”
“No,” Petra whispers. Her face fills with the kind of heartbreak you can’t find on TV, the kind that destroys empires.
“Grisha’s gathering the vory as we speak,” I tell April, forcing my gaze away from her grief.
April’s response is the last thing I expect. “He’s what?” she stammers. “No, Matvey, you can’t.”
I frown. “Can’t what?”
“Don’t let him gather the vory,” she rushes to say. “Yuri and Carmine aren’t working alone. Someone else is in on it!”
Her words turn me to stone.
Someone else.
Another betrayal.
Possibilities flash through my mind. Where is the kiss of Judas going to come from next?
Grisha and his loyalty?
Petra and her grief?
Before I can go any further, April answers the question for me. “It’s —”
A name slips out of her lips. One name, and then the line is brutally cut, the sound of crushed circuits echoing in my ear.
I can’t even be properly furious about that—the fact that they discovered her, that she must be in danger right now—because the name she gave me demands my immediate attention.
Because the owner of that name is right in front of me.
I reach for my gun, but another one’s safety clicks off before I can draw. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you, son.”
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55
MATVEY
It happens in an instant: one second, I’m on the phone with April, and the next…
The next, Vladimir Solovyov is pointing a gun at my head.
“So it was you.”
“Of course it was me,” he spits. “You didn’t think I’d let you live after what you’ve done, did you?”
Blyat’. I’ve been a fool until the end. Again, the answer was right in front of me.
Why did I cross Vlad out of my list of suspects? Why did I think he had nothing to do with this? Who did I send to spy on him in the first place?
Yuri.
Once more, my subconscious betrayed me. Because, even after he stabbed me in the back…
Part of me still trusted the man he was.
“Even the most loyal dog will bite if backed into a corner.”
Why the fuck can’t I remember my answer?
“Dad…?” Petra murmurs. “What are you…?”
“Stay back,” he barks at her. “I told you this was no place for you.”
“You were planning this?” she asks. “All along, you’ve been planning this?”
But he doesn’t deign to give her a reply. “Go wait in the car,” he orders instead.
“Have you lost your mind?” Shock fades from her face, giving way to a much more familiar expression: fury. “You think I’ll let you do this? That I’ll let you gun down my husband?!”
“Husband!” he scoffs. “You think I’m an idiot, don’t you? Tell me, girl: why don’t you tell everyone here who the father of your bastard truly is?”
Her eyes go wide. “You knew?”
“Of course I fucking knew!” he bellows. “Everybody knew! It was goddamn obvious!” He jabs the gun in my direction to make a point. “This one only had eyes for that freckled bitch, and you…” A sneer mars his face. “You, solnyshka, had already set your sights elsewhere. Though at least you had the decency to keep your affair behind closed doors.”
“All this time, you forced me to keep that secret…”
“Oh, please. I didn’t force you to do a damn thing. You were just too dumb to keep your legs closed.”
“Enough,” I croak. “Petra, go. I can handle it here.”
It’s a lie. I’ve painted myself into a corner, and everyone here knows it. The second I sent Grisha away, my fate was sealed.
But that doesn’t mean hers has to be.
I’ve loathed this woman. I’ve wanted her out of my life more times than I can count, resented her for every sacrifice I’ve had to make to keep this pretense alive. I’ve blamed her, over and over again, for tearing me and April apart.
But, God help me, I’ve never wanted her dead.
“No.”
“For fuck’s sake, Petra, will you just listen to me for once?!”
“Do as he says,” her father demands. “Or else you’ll be the next one with a gun to your head.”
Her face falls. “You wouldn’t.”
“Why not? You’re no good to me as an heir. And now, you’re no good as a broodmare either. You’re lucky that lover of yours came to me for a deal, or else I would’ve had you gunned down long ago. But if you test me now…”
Petra’s face hardens. With a single step, she places herself between me and her father’s gun. “Then fucking come and get me.”
“Stop that,” I hiss.
She doesn’t look at me as she hisses back, “Shut up and let me save your goddamn life.”
“Like hell,” I snarl. “You’re a pregnant fucking woman.”
“And if I die, Yuri’s child dies with me,” she declares. “So let’s see if he’s got the balls to blow up his alliance.”
“You stupid girl,” Vlad mutters. “You’re always getting in my way. Even when I sent those assassins to that whore’s place, you just had to be there and foil my plan.”
“That was you?!”
“How many times are you gonna make me say it?” With his free hand, he gives his men a signal. Slowly, they start to surround us. “Of fucking course it was me.”
“The kidnappers who took April,” I realize. “One of them was Italian, but the other wasn’t. He was Russian.” My face twists into a snarl. “All along, you’ve been in bed with Carmine.”
“Why else would your little brother come to me?” he cackles. “Oh, wait. Guess I should stop calling him that, should I?”
“What does that mean?” Petra demands.
“Nothing you need to concern yourself with, girl.”
We’re completely surrounded now. Unfriendly guns bristling in every direction. “Stand the fuck down,” I repeat to her. “I’ve got this.”
“You really suck at lying, you know that?”
“Petra.”
“No!” she insists. “Whatever happens, we’re family. I’m not going to abandon my family.”
I should tell her that she’s wrong. That we aren’t family, not in any way that matters. She isn’t my real wife; she isn’t my brother’s girlfriend; and to that child inside of her, I’m no one.
So why can’t I do it?
“Take them,” Vlad commands.
We don’t resist. We can’t—if I fight, he’ll shoot her; if she fights, he’ll shoot me. It’s a catch-22, and for the first time in my life, I’m forced to let the enemy put me in cuffs willingly.
But there’s another reason I let it happen. Another reason I let some nameless minion of Vlad’s bash my head in with the grip of their gun, painting my vision with black, dancing spots.
If they’re not killing us, they can only be taking us to them. And wherever they are…
That’s where my family will be.