She leans over and pulls them off her feet. They’re blue. Simple.
“Toss them on the ground. You won’t need ’em where you’re going.”
Viktor’s lips quirk in dark delight.
She hesitates. I feel everybody’s attention, wondering how fucked up I can get. But we’re running out of time. We need answers—fast.
Which means I have to get very, very fucked up.
She throws them onto the grass.
“Get them, Daddy,” I growl.
“Pervert,” she whispers.
“I’m a lot worse than a pervert, Kitten. As you’ll soon find out.”
She looks disgusted.
Good. I’ll be as fucked up as I need to be to get our baby brother back. I’ll trash my very soul to save him.
“If my dad says he doesn’t know anything more, he doesn’t know anything more.”
“I won’t ask again,” I say.
He bends and snaps them up from the ground. “Good,” I say. “Our brother. Kiro. Address.”
“I only have a name. The adoption agency.”
I need more. I press the gun to Mira’s temple and her eyes go wide and dark. In a flash, she reminds me of the girl I knew. That’s what the mind does, though. It pastes memories over what’s really there. “You really don’t want to see her again, do you?”
“It’s all I have—I swear it! She’s not in this. She’s innocent!”
“You’re telling me you didn’t bother keeping tabs on our baby brother?”
“The Worland Agency insists on anonymity. It’s where I’d start if I needed to find him.”
“What’s going on?” Mira asks. “Somebody tell me what’s going on! Dad?”
The clock is ticking. Is he gambling with his own daughter? I close my eyes and try to think, but all I can see is Konstantin in his wheelchair, warning me off of this: Once you start that fight with Nikolla, it’s a fight to the death. Once he sees you’re back and that you have Viktor with you, all the firepower in Chicago turns on you. Their cops, their made guys.
Only the three Dragusha brothers together can win such a fight.
Except Kiro is out there somewhere, and he needs us.
Viktor doesn’t remember Kiro, but I do, if only in the barest flashes. A happy baby waving his tiny hands in the air. Big eyes. A sweet nature. Not like Viktor and me.
If Kiro is dead, I will destroy the world. I grab Mira’s dark hair and pull her to me.
“Don’t touch her.”
“I’ll touch her as much as I want,” I say. “She’s mine, isn’t she? Didn’t you say I could have anything of yours I wanted?”
The old boss’s lips move, but nothing comes out. The great boss—the krye—of the Black Lion clan, is finally feeling desperate. They say when you have your enemy on his knees, you start to feel sorry for him, but I’ll never feel sorry for Aldo Nikolla. He’s as dangerous as a king cobra, even with his supposedly bad heart.
“If she’s mine,” I continue, “I can do anything I want with her, can’t I?” I press my face to her hair.
“You’re a dead man,” Nikolla growls. Yet he gives no more.
“Fine.” I glance at Viktor. Time for plan B. Viktor and me, we’re brothers up from the shadows, no need for words. Viktor gets on the phone.
I slip an arm around Mira. “Probably a good time to adjust your expectations for your weekend downward, Kitten.”
She stays perfectly still. She never did scare easy.
“Kitten.” Nikolla gives his daughter a doleful look. “We’re okay.”
“I might not go with okay,” I say.
“His heart is bad, you jerk.” She rips away from me and hauls off, like she’s going to hit me.
I catch her arms and get her back under control. I give her a long, hard look that lets her see the cold parts of my soul, and finally I feel her tremble. I flash on what it would be like to have her naked at my feet, trembling like that. I shake the thought out of my mind.
The sound of breaking glass up at the house tells me Viktor’s guys are in there looting. Mira looks stunned. “Bind him, gag him, and take him away,” I say.
Tito moves on the old man and sticks a needle in his arm. Mira screams and jerks. The old man is out like a light. “Where are you taking him?”
“Don’t worry,” I say. “We won’t let him die.”
She looks up at me with something like hope in her eyes.
“For now,” I add.
Tito loads him up into the ridiculous golf cart and they haul him up the hill.
“Note to self,” I say aloud. “Have Viktor shoot me if I ever get one of those things.”
Viktor grins.
A few more of our guys have arrived, sliding across the grounds like shadows. The Russians reporting to Viktor.
“Come on.” I push her toward the house.
She stops and turns. “Just tell me what’s going on.”
“You don’t know?” I’m a little surprised she hasn’t figured it out by now, but then again, she believes we died that day. Everybody thinks that. Except her father and Lazarus.
“Tell me,” she says.
“This is the part where we remove weapons, cash, and other valuables from your place. Maybe wreck a few things. I believe the technical term is pillaging. Or is it plundering? You’d think I would’ve looked into that.”
Mira stares at me with a stunned expression.
“What’s wrong?” I growl. “I got a bluebird on my head or something?”
“If he dies, then you die. What’s the point?”
Again I hear old Konstantin’s warning. If you hit the hornet’s nest, if you show that you and Viktor are alive and together, all of Nikolla’s firepower turns on you.
As if on cue, some windows break. Then gunfire sounds out.
“They found the antique gun collection, I think,” Viktor says.
I push her. “Go.”
The princess looks up at her precious castle. “Can I keep…one thing?”
I’m guessing jewelry. Shoes, maybe. She’s always talking about her shoe collection on Instagram. “Depends. Can it shoot bullets? Because, lenient as I am—”
“It’s just a coffee mug. Nobody’ll care about it.”
Another window breaks. Viktor’s guys’ll break a lot of the stuff, but they’ll keep what’s good to sell. They’ve brought vans for the loot.
“It’s easy to find. It’s just a chipped mug with a picture of a cat head. It’s in the lower kitchen cupboard. No—it’s out on the counter…”
I motion to one of Viktor’s guys and send him ahead for the mug. “Mind the time.”
I flash on the old Mira, all pigtails and grass stains. Champion of trapped bugs and bullied kids. Everything in the house and she picks a coffee mug.
I snort. Like I think it’s stupid. Maybe a trick. Trying not to think what I might have to do to save Kiro’s life.
Chapter Four
Mira
We’re up at the drive in front of the house.
I plead repeatedly for news of my father, if only to know he’s still alive. My captor just texts.