She knows exactly how many times I shot Sasha. Even knows the placement of the bullets.
She couldn’t guess that.
Sasha died on the compound grounds. We buried him within a day. No one outside the Bratva should even know he’s dead, let alone who killed him and how it happened.
Who told her?
Who’s feeding her information?
She has to have a source close enough to the inner circle to know details that should be locked down.
“I didn’t create anything that didn’t already exist.” Her voice grows deceptively soft. “I just gave a little push, and the Bratva turned on itself like I knew it would.”
The words hit harder than they should, because she’s not wrong. A stable house doesn’t crumble from a strong wind.
She may be the storm, but our home started collapsing because the foundations were already weak.
Ever since MJ died, Roman’s been losing it, little by little.
And if your leader starts to crack…
I force down the thought. I can’t let her get into my head. “You framed Sasha.”
“Framed?” She frowns. “Framed him for what? It’s not my fault your Pakhan overreacted and turned on one of his own men. I simply showed you all your true colors under pressure.”
She’s placing all the blame on Roman, an M.O. that I can use to my advantage.
“You think you’re so much better than Roman.” I toss hair out of my eyes and shift my bound wrists. “But you used innocent people too. Chloe. Jordan. Paige. Treated them all like pawns to get back at your father.”
Her expression changes. A subtle twitch at the corner of her mouth, a flinch of her eyes.
Oh, she doesn’t like that at all.
Thankfully, those women are fine now. Better than fine, somehow. Though the fact that they all hooked up with Kozlov men still confuses the hell out of me. Chloe, Kolya’s little teacher, is practically married into the family. Kirill Khitrenko’s woman, Jordan, swings by every week to do yoga with Roman’s niece Valeria. And Vanya and Paige are disgustingly in love. All their happy endings are bizarre. Incomprehensible.
But they’re also a pressure point.
“You dragged each of them into our world. They were hunted. Kidnapped. Tortured. Had their lives destroyed because you chose them as clues in your sick game. That’s Roman’s playbook.” Her shoulders straighten when she spots the smirk spreading over my lips. “You’re his fucking daughter all right, and the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”
Chapter 10
Nika
I don’t flinch, but my insides shrivel at his words.
He’s wrong. I’m nothing like Roman.
The denial comes automatically, reflexively, the same way you’d jerk your hand back from a flame.
Still, the internal insistence rings hollow.
All three of those women ended up traumatized by that island. They grew up and carved out new lives for themselves, at least until I used that shared pain to sow discord and clear the path for my own success.
I treated them like tools. Necessary pieces on the board.
Not people.
But I needed them. I had to use their connections to the island to dredge up my father’s sins and shove them in his face. Drive him to expose his greed.
