110

RUSLAN

I don’t waste any time. We don’t even brake the caravan as we approach.

“Faster,” I bark into the radio linking me to the rest of the units fanning out across the road. “I don’t want to give this mudak a single breath to contemplate what’s about to happen to him.”

The explosives team leads the way, lobbing bombs around the perimeter to take out any circulating patrols.

Shit goes boom. The world shakes.

No points will be awarded for subtlety today.

As soon as we’re in range, the full might of the Oryolov Bratva comes pouring out of vehicles with me at the front. Kirill is at my side the entire time. Mikael, Arkady, and Nikolai fan out alongside me, each taking a contingent of men with them.

We’ve got the house surrounded in no time. Adrik has men, but they’re nowhere near enough to stop the shitstorm I’ve brought with me. Every motherfucker who sticks so much as a toe out gets mowed down instantly.

For a few chaotic minutes, bullets scythe through the air, screaming as they bring death down on the heads of the bastards who took my family.

Then the deluge dies down. Only a few sporadic reports of gunfire here and there as Adrik’s men retreat up the stairs. That means Adrik is up there.

And where Adrik is…

That’s where I’ll find my family.

I aim carefully, taking out two of the men on the staircase. Seeing their comrades die seems to send a message to the remaining fighters.

They’re next.

“We’ll stand down!” one screams. “We’ll stand down. Just don’t shoot.”

To show me he means it, he drops his gun and puts his hands in the air. The three other men beside him on the staircase seem skeptical as they watch him descend the staircase.

“I surrender,” he repeats.

“Good. Then I’ll spare your life.” I turn to the remaining three men on the staircase. “What about you three?”

There’s a moment of hesitation before two of the three men drop their weapons and come down behind the first. Maybe this will be easier than I thought it would be.

I glare at the last man standing. “Are you prepared to die for your leader?”

He rises to his feet, his eyes looking over the three men who just surrendered their weapons. Don’t say it, you stupid mudak. Don’t you say—

“I’m no fuckin’ coward.”

He raises his gun fast. But I’m faster. I shoot him right in the face and he stumbles back, painting the wall with his blood.

“No, but you are a fucking idiot.” I turn to the remaining three men. “And as for you, I appreciate your cooperation. But I learned a long time ago: never accept a surrender that’s been given after the battle is lost.”

I don’t have to raise my gun this time. From behind them, Mikael, Kirill, and Arkady take aim and shoot the poor bastards in the backs of their heads. In unison, all three collapse at my feet and I glower at their bodies with disgust.

“My uncle taught me that,” I add quietly.

I don’t have long to admire the blood of my enemies before a terrified little girl’s scream sends panic surging in my veins.

Reagan.

I bound up the staircase three steps at a time. One last cluster of Adrik’s men stands at the ready outside the final room at the end of the corridor. I don’t bother breaking stride—I just mow them all down with ruthless efficiency. Truth be told, they were dead long before I arrived.

They just didn’t know it yet.

I leap over the pile of still-warm bodies. It takes only one strong kick to send the door they were guarding flying off its hinges. I hear a collection of gasps and screams but it’s all music to my ears.

Emma. Reagan. Caroline. Josh.

They’re all here, crowded behind the mattress flipped on its side.

But someone else is in here, too.

Adrik is standing in the middle of the room, his face twisted with a scowl. He makes a show of waving his gun in the air.

“Cut the shit, Adrik,” I snarl. “It’s over. You’ve got nothing left. No men, no resources. And no more Daddy to bail you out.”

Adrik’s eyes narrow. “You killed him.”

“No, you killed him. By pulling this shit. Put down the gun and be sensible.”

“Sensible?” he repeats furiously. “Sensible?! Being ‘sensible’ is what forced my father into a life of servitude.”

My eyes roll with contempt. “He lived in a seven-bedroom penthouse in New York City. He ate caviar for breakfast and traveled in a private jet all around the world. If it was a life of servitude he had, most men alive would slaughter everyone they know for just one day of it.”

Adrik is unconvinced. “He should have been the pahkan.”

“What you’re saying is that you want to be pahkan.”

He turns his weapon to the side, pointing it at Emma and the kids. I freeze immediately. They all do. Reagan is buried under Emma’s arm while Caroline is hiding behind her back. Josh is the only one who’s not ducking behind the bed, despite Emma’s best efforts to pull him down beside her.

Adrik shakes his head. “You always did think you were better than me.”

“Prove me wrong then,” I say. “Stop waving a gun at children. Fight me like a man and take what you think you deserve.”

Glowering fiercely at me, Adrik slowly lowers his weapon. Someone calls my name, one of the girls, but I don’t dare take my eyes off Adrik for a second.

“Emma,” I say without glancing at her, “cover the girls’ eyes.”

I hear her whispering to them. Soft, urgent words that I can’t make out. Adrik’s gaze stays fixed on me. “How did you kill him?” he asks as we start to slowly circle each other.

“Bullet to the head. He didn’t see it coming. I made sure of that.”

“How merciful of you,” Adrik snarls sarcastically. “I always told him that you’d turn on him the first chance you got.”

“Then you don’t know a thing about me.”

“I know that you’re an entitled—”

I don’t allow him to finish the sentence. I lunge closer and punch him right in the face, sending him keeling back towards the window.

His rage doesn’t hinder him like I expect. In fact, it makes him faster, more determined. He charges toward me, unloading a barrage of jabs and hooks, one of which catches me cleanly on the jaw.

Suddenly, I’m a boy again. I’m with Leonid in the gym. Move your head. Anticipate. Feel the air move before the punch comes.

That lesson ended with me eating punch after punch from him. So did the next lesson, and the next, and the one after that. But slowly, I learned how to move. Leonid didn’t go easy on me, but that was a gift in and of itself. Our enemies won’t go easy on you, little brother. Why would I?

I catch sight of Josh over Adrik’s shoulder. His eyes are huge, his jaw clenched brutally tight. I want more than anything to keep them safe. To show him what it is to be a man, the same way my brother taught me the meaning of it. I want them to know I will protect them.

But the distraction gives Adrik just enough of an opening to slam a fist into my gut. When I double over with a grunt of pain, he throws a knee into my chin hard enough to make me see stars.

I spit blood and a broken tooth on the floor as Adrik retreats a step or two so he can laugh at my agony. “I’m better than you, Ruslan Oryolov. I’ve always been and I’ve gonna prove that right fucking now.”

He sends a brutal kick my way but I sidestep it and hurl a punch at his stomach. It’s not a perfect blow, but it’s enough to stagger him, and when he goes stumbling backward, his foot catches a loose floorboard and plants him on his ass.

“Keep talking, Makarov. You’re just digging yourself a deeper hole.” I tower over him, blood streaming down my chin and chest. “Let’s face it: this is where you really belong. At my fucking feet.”

Adrik sneers up at me, a kernel of fear flashing across his eyes. “You don’t know what I’m capable of.”

He’s trying to sidle out from underneath my shadow but I raise my foot and pin it down on his chest. “You got something to say? Then say it.”

He bares his teeth as I put more of my weight on his chest. “Your brother was alive after the car skidded into that lamppost. He was bleeding from the head but he was alive.”

My body goes cold. “How… how do you know that?”

“Because I was driving the car that crashed into them.”

My head feels like it’s about to explode. My body is tingling with disbelief and rage. Adrenaline pumps through me, hot and venomous.

Adrik shoves himself upward, taking advantage of my shock. He knocks my leg off him and comes at me hard, with a dead man’s fury.

He was counting on my distraction—which he got. But in his desperation, he hadn’t accounted for my rage. It explodes out of me, catching him between its fangs. I slam my forehead into his face until his eyeballs roll back in his skull. He punches and swings elbows, and more than one of those strikes catches me, until my face is a waterfall of blood.

None of it matters.

I still pin him to the wall by his throat.

“Say it again, motherfucker,” I rasp. “Say that bullshit one more time and see what happens.”

But I can tell by the look in his eyes that it’s true. And maybe I knew it in my bones long before I knew it in my head. Of course this is how it happened. The sick threads of my life coming together in a vicious knot.

Vadim had taken care of everything after Mom and Leonid’s deaths. He must’ve known he would’ve been the one to do that, too. So he forced it to happen all by himself. He thought he could play puppet master and make my father and me dance to his tune. He sent his son out to kill my family—to kill me, too, if only I’d been in the car the way I was supposed to—and he thought he’d come along and scoop up the pieces for himself.

“You’re getting it, aren’t you?” Adrik laughs manically. “I can tell. I can smell it on you. I killed your whore of a mother and your bastard of a brother. And you know what? I don’t regret it. I watched the car burst into flames and that was the moment when I realized what I was capable of.”

“Emma,” I growl, voice breaking with rage, “get the kids out of here.”

I hear the scurrying of feet as Emma herds them out of the room. The moment the door closes, I tighten my grip around Adrik’s neck.

“This will not end well for you, Adrik. I will—”

I stop short as pain erupts down my side. I glance down and realize that Adrik has stuck me with a knife he pulled out from fuck knows where. The strength evaporates from my grip immediately. He pushes me off him and lurches for his gun, which is lying only a few feet away where he dropped it.

Everything happens in reverse this time. I’m the one tripping. I’m the one falling on my back. He is the one putting his foot on my chest and standing over me, ready to rain down death.

No! I want to bellow. This can’t be how it—

BANG!

The gunshot rings out. I wait for the pain, but it doesn’t come.

Then Adrik crumples to the floor.

I twist around and find a shaking Josh, holding a smoking gun. My smoking gun.

I reach up and snatch it from his hands. The stab wound screams with pain as it leaks too much blood, but if I hesitate now, I’m risking my life and more importantly, Josh’s. So I harness all my willpower and all my strength to turn a blind eye to the pain.

I stand and kick Adrik’s gun away from where he’s still reaching for it. Josh got him in the shoulder and he’s bleeding like a stuck pig, same as me. But when he sees he has no chance left, he stops and looks up at me.

“Put your gun down and fight me like a man,” he croaks.

It’s a pathetic attempt to goad me. “We just tried that. As it turns out, you’re not a man. You’re a fucking ghost.” I cock my gun and take aim.

His eyes veer to Josh. “You’re really gonna kill me in front of the kid?”

“Josh, look away.”

“No,” Josh replies firmly. “I’m not afraid.”

I nod. I want to give Adrik the death he deserves—long, messy, painful. But I’m not about to traumatize Josh that way. So even though he doesn’t deserve it, I give Adrik the same death I gave Vadim. Quick and clean.

But I make sure he sees it coming. I want him to know that death has come for him.

“Goodbye, cousin.”

He opens his mouth to say something, but I don’t give him the chance.

I shoot once.

That’s all it takes.

He flops back against the floor as blood pools around his head in two long streams like devil’s horns. I drop the gun and grab hold of Josh, who returns the hug with a force I’m not expecting. Somehow, now that he’s in my arms, the stab wound doesn’t hurt quite as bad.

“Are you okay?” I rasp.

He nods against my chest. “I am now.”