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Pinching the bridge of my nose, I turned to Fedel. “What does this have to do with Vance?”
The idiot was so busy getting high off his past memories he almost forgot why we were talking about this.
Declan pulled out a photo of a red-haired woman. “Meet the woman formerly known as Saige Rozhkov.”
“He had a daughter?” I replied but the closer I stared, the more I saw the resemblance.
“Formerly?” Mel asked him as she glared at the redheaded woman in the photo.
“By the end of tonight, she will be Saige Valero,” he replied, and both Mel and I put our drinks down.
“What the fuck?” Mel and I said together.
“From what I’ve learned, the man who slit old Rozhkov’s throat was Vance when he was on his rise to power. He wanted Saige to marry Amory. However, the old man wouldn’t have it. That’s when he went to Orlando, but he was rejected again. So Vance took a step back, and I guess allowed both your families to destroy Rozhkov. But since you let him live, Vance went back and killed him, but not before torturing every last secret out of him. Even though Alexei was destroyed, he still had the names. As both of you know, old names come with old favors. He pulled every last one of them after the fall of Rozhkov,” Fedel explained quickly as he looked through more papers.
“Then why does he need this Saige?” I asked. He had the power already. The girl seemed to be useless.
“Because they’re foreigners,” Mel whispered, and I could see her connecting the dots in her mind. “Vance and his brothers came from Italy where my father all but banished them. The Russians hate outsiders. This Saige is a pawn. Something to make his men stand straighter behind him.”
Made sense. “Does she know?”
He nodded and frowned. “She’s the one who sold out her father’s location to Vance. She apparently misses the power—these encrypted letters are hers. I thought they were ranting’s of a mad woman at first—”
“Today is the day,” I read the letter aloud, which had the worst grammar, even in Russian. “Today is the day I take my rightful place on the throne. My father was fool and lost everything. He didn’t know how to play the game. But I do. I have spent years planning my revenge and now with the power of the Amory. With the power of the Valero, I shall be queen. I will cover the earth with the blood of my enemies. Starting with Irish Cunt and Italian whore.
“And this is why we do not keep journals. It’s dated for today,” I added as I handed it to her. I knew she couldn’t read it, but she looked ready to rip it from my hands.
“So she’s batshit crazy. Give me a location and I will kill her now whether it’s true or not.” Mel’s eyes narrowed in on the paper. If she wasn’t careful, she would set it on fire.
Fedel frowned. “I don’t have one. These letters were taken from her personal tablet. However, they are bouncing from eight different countries. We see everything she types but have no idea where she is.”
“What makes you think this is real? She cannot honestly be stupid enough to be writing her innermost thoughts and plans,” I asked him. He said he hadn’t verified it yet, and despite how true it may have seemed, it could have been a lie.
“As requested, a notice was put out about the death of Orlando. Because of that, Amory went back to Russia. However, it wasn’t just him who came home—all the Valero did. Most of them spread out through Moscow. But all within walking distance to the Black Hotel where there is no one else staying but a Mrs. S.,” Fedel explained, and all I wanted to do was bash his head in. The downside to ruling an empire was the lack of fucking vacation days. I was looking forward to this camp.
“Tell me about Mrs. S. personally,” Mel demanded softly as she stared at the photo of her.
“Saige Rozhkov, age twenty-six, born in Stavropol, Russia to a prostitute of a mother. Her father basically wanted nothing to do with her, from what I could find. He had two other sons, and I guess she wasn’t cool with being treated as a second-class citizen, so she killed both boys at sixteen. She got her father’s attention, and he made her his heir. She has been a black widow of sorts. However, she doesn’t need to marry them to suck the life out of them. She’s trained herself in hand-to-hand combat, taught herself how to fly almost anything, and she can speak Italian, French, English, Spanish, Hebrew, and Russian. She’s cold, and she’s merciless,” Fedel finished, and at the end of his little biography, he looked straight to Mel.
On the outside she looked cool, calm, and collected, but on the inside I could see the lioness trying to claw its way out of its cage.
“Fedel, leave us.”
I stared in her eyes, scanning them quickly before standing. She finished off the rest of her drink before rising along with me. We both walked into the private room at the back of the plane without speaking.
The moment I closed the door, she took a deep breath and tried to stand still for a second but couldn’t.
“I want her head on a plate.”
I wasn’t sure why, but I chuckled. “Is this jealously? Are you mad that this woman is on the same level as you are?”
A knife flew at my face giving me only a second to react. I moved out of the way before it embedded itself in the door.
“No one is on the same level as me.”
“She killed her brothers.”
“Half-brothers don’t count. I would kill them too if they stood in my way,” she replied.
“She betrayed her father.”
She glared at me, her eyes searching my face. “Her father was an honorless, spineless bitch. I would have killed him first.”
Brushing her hair back, I brought my lips closer to hers. “Then why are you so angry?”
“Because I read the rest of the letter.”
I stared at her, confused. “You don’t know Russian.”
“I may not be able to speak it, but I can read most of it just fine. My IQ may not be the same as yours, but I handle myself.” She took a deep breath. “I believe she said I a classless, emotionless, cunt-faced daughter of a whore. She knew that my parents were separated, and she also knew that my mother was having an affair with her bodyguard, Roger. That I should have burned with her in the plane. The only way she could have known that is if she was with Amory and Vance. So I want her head on a fucking plate!”
Every time I thought I knew her, I figured out something new. When I gave her that letter, I honestly didn’t think she would be able to read it. I had read ahead and stopped when I noticed where the letter was going.
“Then her head on a plate you shall have. However, it will be next week. The men need this. We will keep Fedel and Declan on top of everything they do. But we can’t go after them with our men acting like children remember.”
She nodded, and I turned to leave when she grabbed my arm. Facing her, I watched as she opened and shut her mouth twice before dropping her hand and stepping back.
“I don’t know how to do this, Liam,” she replied, crossing her arms. “I don’t know how to be open. I’m not that type of person.”
“Bullshit.” I laughed, causing her to look me in the eye. “You don’t want to know. You can speak God knows how many languages. You are an expert fighter, shooter, and a master manipulator. If there is something you wanted or needed to be able to do, you would force yourself to learn. You would commit to it through blood and sweat. You would do that for everything but me. So don’t try that card with me. I do not accept that excuse. I know you too fucking well for that shit.”
