Page 77 of Savage Don

A twisted angel who fell from heaven and landed directly on my bed.

I’ll make sure she understands why I’ve taken away her birth control pills. I’ll make sure she wants to have my heir.

I’ll make sure she wants to be my queen.

But first, I need to ensure that we’ll have an empire to rule.

Leaning over her, I give my corrupted little princess one last soft kiss on the forehead before turning to leave.

“… Ray?” she whispers after me.

“Go back to sleep, kitten,” I rumble. “You need your rest. I’ll be back later tonight.”

That’s all I say before stepping out into the hallway.

As quietly as possible, I close the bedroom door behind me and head down to the room where I keep my clothes.

I’ll be back later tonight.

Hopefully, it will be sooner than that.

Getting changed, I think about my mission for the day.

It’s all about apprehending Iskhak Artuzov.

His files filled the manila envelope Aiden handed to me the other day.

An old Soviet spy who once worked a high-level position for the now defunct Cheryshev Bratva. Nowadays, he’s making a living doing freelance work.

His most lucrative business seems to center around file deletion and destruction of evidence.

Apparently, the former Soviet spy’s specialty is disguising himself as a federal agent. For a hefty price, he’ll infiltrate just about any government office in the land and erase whatever they have on you.

It’s essentially a get out of jail free card to those who don’t have the power or resources to buy corrupt officials themselves. That’s why I’ve never had to use him, and it’s why it took all of this time for someone from the Kilpatrick and Barinov alliance to stumble upon a man who could be so valuable to our underlings.

We suspect that our Italian rat was using Artuzov to send information directly to the feds. The older Russian is the perfect messenger, after all. A ghost who’s smart enough not to get caught.

Really, if we didn’t have so many corrupt officials on our payroll, Artuzov might have already been able to ruin us. But so far, he’s only been able to get his information into the hands of those who are already in our pockets.

It’s my job to make sure he doesn’t get another shot. It’s also up to me to find out who’s paying him—that is, if we’re even on the right path.

We’re pretty sure that we are, though. In that manilla envelope I received yesterday, there was a coded testimony from some of our corrupt officials, swearing that they’d seen someone who looked like Artuzov sneaking around on the same days they intercepted harmful information about us.

The fucker is going to pay for thinking he could cross the most powerful men in the underworld.

It doesn’t take me long to suit up and jump in my armored Bentley out front. Racing down the highway at full speed, I head for the airport.

Our friend Iskhak Artuzov has been out of town, I’m going to welcome him back home.

My knuckles turn white as I pick up speed. They’re still scraped and bruised from the fun I had last night, before returning home to Francesca.

At my meeting with the bosses, earlier that day, I had gotten all the information they’d been able to compile on Artuzov. The man may be like a ghost, but he still has his weakness.

Included in the manila envelope were covert photos of him entering and exiting a dive bar in Hell’s Kitchen. According to his file, it’s where he spends most of his free time. It’s also where he writes checks to the street toughs he hires to watch his back.

I thought I’d pay them all a little visit.

It was never going to be easy, getting guys like that to talk—walking into that hole in the wall was like walking into a saloon in some old western. The moment I stepped inside, the place went quiet and all eyes turned onto me.