Page 127 of The Billionaire Who Saved My Cat From The Mafia

“Fuck.Summer’s going to kill me,” Declan says, examining the shredded fabric.

“Or she’ll thank you,” Evander says.I look back over my shoulder to see our middle brother smiling.His fingers are steepled.His legs are crossed.And his suit remains immaculate.Evander’s SEAL specialty was close-quarter combat and methods of entry, yet he always prefers to stay out of our skirmishes.

Maybe he reallyissmarter than the rest of us, like he’s always claimed.

“But it’s my best shirt!”

Evander laughs.“My dude, I’m sure there’s more stained and filthy Foo Fighters concert tees at the bottom of your closet where that one came from.No one will be the wiser.”

“Are you fucking with me right now?”I refocus.“The woman I love is clearly terrified for her life and we’re talking about Declan’s shirts?”I lunge at Declan again, and this time my hands reach his neck.Cal and Finn dive on top of me.

“Declan!”Finn yells.“Put the image on the screen before this crazy motherfucker kills us all!”

“I will if I can get some room to move!Damn!”

I slump onto my belly in surrender.Cal and Finn remove their collective tonnage off my head and neck and I scootch backwards until my feet hit the ground.Then I fetch my chair and slide down into it.

I’m losing my fucking mind.Just the idea of Frankie out there in trouble makes my stomach turn, and these assholes just don’t get it.They don’t understand what it feels like to know that the woman you love is in real danger, and if you can’t figure out how to fix the situation, you may never see her again.

I look up.I scan the faces of each of my brothers.And I realize I might be wrong.

They’ve all been here, right where I am in this moment.They’ve all come dangerously close to losing the women they love and need in their lives.

Declan nods at me and taps the control panel.“Meet Nikolai “Niko” Koslov,” he says.

I stare at the man on the screen.His black hair is carefully styled.His eyes are so dark they look black, too.His face is clean-shaven, and his thin lips are pulled tight across his brutish face.He’s wearing an expensive suit, gold cufflinks, and a gold pinkie ring.And his body language makes my skin crawl.

He stands threateningly close to Frankie.It’s barely noticeable, but she leans slightly away from him.But I notice.

Frankie couldn’t have found two men more different if she tried.I have absolutely nothing in common with this clown.Why was she ever with him?

I might be sick.

“Summer took these photos.”Declan clicks through a series of pictures.There’s one of Niko close up, a side view, a three-quarters profile, and in retreat, Frankie’s hand crushed in his.That fucker’s not holding her hand—he’s dragging her by the arm.

Iwillbe sick.

CHAPTER 62

Special K

Declan is still talking.“We used our proprietary facial recognition software and matched it to law enforcement databases.Thirty-two years old.Born in butt-fuck nowhere Siberia just after the fall of the Soviet Union.”

He brings up a series of what’s obviously surveillance footage of Niko with a bunch of goons in Las Vegas.“Raised in a gulag, yada-yada-yada, brought into the Russian mob when he should have been learning his multiplication tables.Basically adopted by the head of a crime syndicate, yada-yada, and then got moved to the States to establish the syndicate’s presence in Nevada.All the standard stuff—murder, human trafficking, gaming, and drugs, of course.”

I feel my lips part and my blood boil.I throw Declan a murderous glare.“And you just left her with that piece of garbage?”

“K,” Cal says.“Declan was smart, quick on his feet.”

Another photo appears on the screen.

“And here we have a bunch of dead mobsters,” Evander says, as if I can’t see the grisly crime scene photo for myself, now displayed on our huge monitor.Most have been shot, but a lot have had their throats slit.The floor of this small restaurant is literally flooded with blood.

“The feds think this was some kind of turf war ambush thing,” Evander says.“Quite a few of these dead bastards were on the FBI’s most-wanted list.Now they’re on a slab in the Clark County morgue.”

How the fuck did Frankie get messed up in this?

“And this Niko guy?”I ask Evander.“Isheunder the radar?”