Hoped she might be able to reach out for help, wherever she ended up.
Then I crushed that thought.
Nyet.
I was going to find her.
Kill those Sicilian dogs one by one.
I was going to get her back.
I’d just made it into the back room when headlights bounced around the cavernous area where the convoy had been parked.
I snuck toward the doorway, back against the wall, ready to put the kill on anyone who stepped through.
Maybe all Lucia had bought me was some time, and those Italian twats had returned to finish me off.
The vehicle’s engine idled.
A car door shut.
I’d be happy to use my bare hands to strangle the first fuck who walked through that door.
“Privet! Arkady?”
New adrenaline punched through me in a rush, and I stepped into the portal. “Kirill.”
My middle brother took one look at me and muttered, “Blyad. I thought I was coming to collect a corpse.”
“You think so little of me?” The jest fell off the tip of my tongue, but I didn’t feel any humor over this situation.
My stomach turned sour when he rushed to me, and I saw the worry in his dark eyes.
“You’re too late,” I bit the words out stiffly.
“I’m here now, aren’t I?” He stuffed one of his shoulders under mine.
Too late.
After Kirill’s escapade with the Yakuza, the three of us Krasnovs as well as Jo and Sasha all carried around discreet tracking devices. I should’ve done the same with Lucia after I’d destroyed the ones secreted on her by her father.
My jaw clamped down hard, and I shoved Kirill’s bolstering arm away.
A frown burrowed between his brows. “I got to you, didn’t I?”
“I am not the one who needed rescuing. Fuck!” I felt like coming to blows with him, rage rippling all over my body.
“You are rid of that Italian pain in the ass. Count yourself lucky it’s all over.”
I glared at him from beneath lowered brows for several long moments before chewing out, “Would you have considered yourself lucky if Bastiano had gotten away with Joanna?”
Kirill’s expression changed in an instant, sudden understanding flattening his features.
I had not meant to say any of that, admit anything at all.
I clamped my mouth shut and schooled my countenance. “Don’t say anything else to me right now.”
He stood back, hands tucked beneath his arms, as I searched for my belongings.
I located my jacket, and my bolas was still there.
Beneath I found my footwear too.
I stuffed my feet into my shoes and socks—each action laborious because my hands still trembled, and my nerves felt peeled back to intense rawness.
Kirill watched me curiously the entire time.
“What did they do to you?” he asked finally.
“Knocked me unconscious. Shocked me with an electric charge a few too many times.” I chewed on the inside of my cheek. “Got away with Lucia.”
“You left a trail of dead on the road from Yury’s,” Kirill muttered with a certain amount of admiration.
And I’ll be happy to do it again.
“Is Yury at The Sickle?” I scanned the place of my torture and Lucia’s abduction one final time.
“Da.”
“Let’s go.”
In my dirty suit and no shirt and with my hair sticking up all over my head, I met with Yury in the mezzanine of the nightclub. And there was nothing but revenge on my mind.
More than half a day had passed since I’d left his house with my precious cargo . . . it felt like years.
Everyone ringed around—Jo, Sasha, Maksim, Kirill, even Boris the mutt—as if this were story time.
I helped myself to vodka, and several shots of it.
Sasha tisked. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea after the ordeal you’ve been through.”
So I slammed down another cold shot and glared at the upstart over the rim of the glass.
Yury observed me from his chair and, as always, his thoughts remained shielded behind an aloof expression.
“Again did not go as planned.” He finally spoke. “First time you fuck up is over a girl.”
I said nothing, staring him right in the eyes.
Yury did not brook mutiny.
I’d told him I was going to take care of the Sicilian problem, and I’d failed.
“Papa, now is not the time.” Sasha bustled over to me.
She started prodding me all over. “What happened? What did they actually do to you? Where’s Lucia?”
“A little shock therapy is all.” I answered only the first question.
“Let me take a look,” she insisted, gauging the burn marks on my chest.
“Leave me alone, girl!” I barked the harsh order through a painfully tight throat.
“Arkady,” Jo admonished.
“Enough.” I skewered her with a glare too. “I do not need more women meddling in my business!”
My outburst caused Jo and Sasha to step back and shut up.
They’d never felt the full fury of my temper before.
Kirill approached, anger sparking in his black eyes, and it was clear he didn’t approve of me talking to his wife that way.
Maybe we’d still come to blows tonight.
“Go. Everyone else go. Dog can stay. Arkady stay.” As if sensing immediate dissent, Yury dismissed the others, laying a heavy hand on Boris’s head.
The door closed and locked behind everyone else.
I fell back in a seat with a bone-weary grunt as the air opened up around me again.
“You are sons to me. You and Kirill and Maksim.” From his breast pocket, Yury produced a cigar.
“I am very proud man. Very lucky man.” He patted his chest then set about snipping the end off the stogie.
Once lit, he puffed lightly on the cigar.
I had never seen Yury like this, spoken to him like this.
I refreshed his vodka then poured one more for myself before lighting a cigarette to join him.
“Bad habit.” He squinted at me then his deep guttural laughter rolled out.
After puffing again, he asked, “Sabato took Lucia?”
I drank my vodka then nodded.
“Same thing happened to me.” The pakhan settled deeper into his chair and tapped ashes off the end of his cigar, which he stared at instead of me. “I lost Sashenka’s mama too.”
I sat up straighter.
Sasha’s mother was never mentioned.
I didn’t even know her name.
Not one single day in all these years had Yury opened up about her.
“What happened?”
His face softened. “Bah. Love happened. Strange.” He rubbed a hand over his chest. “To remember.”
Digging into another pocket, he pulled out an old photograph, maybe even a Polaroid.
Handing the picture to me, he bent his head. “Liliana was American.”
“American?” The small square photo had been handled often, the edges curled, the image sepia toned.
Despite the age of the picture, the young woman beamed at the man behind the camera, presumably Yury himself. She was a beauty, and it was clear where Sasha got her looks from.
“Da.” Yury held out his palm, and I handed the photograph back. “Someone else wanted her too. Another pakhan. But she loved me.”