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She whimpers around her gag, her body trembling uncontrollably as she leans as far away from him as her restraints will allow. My heart throbs painfully, my body tensing with the need to help her. I could murder the bastard with my bare hands, I hate him so intensely right now. But any sudden movement could get Alina killed, so instead, I inch my fingers closer to my hidden weapon.
“Don’t fucking look at her,” I snarl, recapturing his attention. “Your issue is with me.”
His thin lips twist into an ugly sneer. “You know, I really tried to give you the benefit of the doubt. Damien warned me about you, but I just couldn’t believe it without confirming it myself. And there’s no denying it now, is there? Not when you got dragged into the Sakharov house as a prisoner and walked out a free man an hour later, Sergio’s daughter on your arm. He must really like you, huh? Letting you fuck his precious little girl.” He releases an eerie whistle of astonishment.
The delivery of his musings contrast starkly with the hatred in his narrow-eyed gaze.
I bristle at the way he talks about Alina, but the last thing I want to do is give him another reason to focus on her, so instead, I target his grudge against me. “You couldn’t possibly understand why I did what I did,” I snap. “You have no clue what I’ve been through.”
“You don’t think so, Mishka?” Kryuger counters, his hoarse voice rising as he appears to lose his temper for the first time. “You don’t think I’ve been watching you? Wondering what you could possibly be thinking? I’ve tracked your every move. I’ve tried to find the reason you’d go crawling to the enemy. But I just can’t work it out.”
The room crackles with tension as my mind races. I have a hundred questions and no time to work them out. What is his interest in me? He said he’s been watching me. And with a sinking feeling, I realize I must be missing a key piece to the puzzle. Alina’s life hangs in the balance and I’m miles behind the curve.
“So tell me, Mishka, how could you forgive your brother’s killers so easily?” he presses, seeming to find his calm once again. “Was it really all just to get inside some Bratva princess’s pussy? Damien thought so, but I know you better than that.”
How well is he supposed to know me? My heart breaks into a sprint as a terrible, sinking suspicion settles in my gut. Because even when we were part of the Nezhit, my brother and I kept a certain autonomy from our clan. I never let anyone in but Sascha.
Not until Alina entered my life.
But it couldn’t be. Sascha’s dead. Sergio took him prisoner, and I’ve seen firsthand what happens to the men who enter Sergio Sakharov’s basement. They don’t come out alive.
“Why, Mishka? After your brother risked everything to save you… He sacrificed his life for you, and this is how you repay him?”
The words cut deep, and dark suspicion rears its ugly head once again. “Who are you?” I ask, narrowing my eyes to look past Kryuger’s painful-looking scars.
He scoffs. “Have I really changed so much that you can’t even recognize your own brother anymore?”
My heart stops, my hand freezing on its path toward my gun, and I watch in horror as he reaches up slowly to remove his baseball cap.
In the dim light of the side lamp, I can see the full extent of his scarring for the first time. And I can make out a quarter of the man’s original face as he reveals his identity. Bile floods my throat as I recognize him instantly.
“Sascha,” I breathe.
35
ALINA
I’m so terrified to be held at knifepoint by the same man who threatened to cut me into pieces, I almost can’t comprehend what Mishka just said. But as his face morphs into a mask of pain, it slowly sinks in.
I turn my head to look at the scarred man with fresh eyes.
I can see it now. He’s roughly the same size and shape as Mishka, the same powerful build. It’s why I didn’t realize he was an intruder right away when I opened the bathroom door. And now that I’m paying attention, I realize his one good eye is the same deep color of blue as Mishka’s. The rest of him, though, is so scarred, I fail to find further resemblance.
Mishka seems to recognize him, though, and the horror on his face is heartbreaking. “How is that… even possible?” he chokes out. “You’re supposed to be dead. The Sakharovs killed you.”
Sascha scoffs, the throaty sound harsh and mocking. “Not that they didn’t try. When I turned back to hold off Sergio’s men—to give you time to escape—it didn’t take them long to find me. Five against one is hardly a fair fight, so they brought me down easily enough. They beat me to what felt like within an inch of my life. Fractured skull, two broken vertebrae, they dislocated my shoulder. They kicked me until I passed out, and I guess I looked bad enough, they decided I was dead. They didn’t even bother to check, and they didn’t take me with them.”
My heart pounds at the violent story. He must be talking about the day Mishka told me about, when my father’s clan wiped his out. Sascha’s story mirrors the one Mishka told me—that his brother died saving his life, and that my father was the one responsible.
Only in Mishka’s story, Sascha was taken prisoner. He didn’t get left behind.
“You weren’t taken?” Mishka echoes his brother’s words, confusion flashing across his face. His scowl deepens as his shoulders tense.
Sascha sneers as he shakes his head. “They set fire to headquarters—probably to cover all their violence and bloodshed. From what I heard later, nearly fifty men died that night. I woke to the sound of flames eating through the inner door of the top floor.”
Oh, God, the scars. My stomach knots as I realize where his story’s headed before he finishes.
“When I came to, I was trapped under a wardrobe. The men must have knocked it over when they trashed the room. Pinned down, all I could do was watch as the room caught fire one piece of furniture at a time.” Sascha shakes his head, the pain clear even through the scarred mask of his face. “You don’t know how much you can fear it until you’re faced with the idea of burning to death.”
