Page 48 of Where the Wind Whispers

“Apparently,” Carmine answered. “Heard the word traveling through the streets myself and had to look into it.”

No one had said anything about Carmine being there.

Fun.

“And?” Alberto pressed.

“I did a little checking.”

“I swear, if you’re purposely being difficult, Carmine, you will leave this house with a bloody mouth, son. Do not choose for today to be the day that you test my patience and forgiveness for your foolishness. It will not end well for you.”

“Why is it that every conversation we have lately ends with your threatening me, Dad?”

“You know why,” Alberto muttered.

“Moving on,” Carmine said, sighing heavily. “The Russian is dead.”

Violet’s breath caught painfully hard in her chest at the same time her heart leaped into her throat. Blood rushed her ears as her hands curled into tight fists at her sides, her fingernails cutting deep into the sensitive skin of her palm.

No.

There was only one person she had ever heard her father and brother refer to as “the Russian.”

That was Kaz.

All of the sudden, Violet couldn’t breathe, and sickness started to well hard and fast in her stomach. Her heart was breaking—shattered into a million little pieces and cutting her all over like glass shards as it fell to the floor at her feet.

No.

After everything, this was how it was going to end?

She refused to believe that; she couldn’t.

“The funeral was today,” Carmine added.

Violet’s grief and pain kicked up a notch, threatening to send her falling to the floor. Somehow, she managed to stay up on shaky legs.

“Get me the remote for the television,” Alberto said. “It’ll be on the news, surely. Vasily Markovic dead? That funeral would have been full of media attention.”

It took Violet an entire fifteen seconds of listening to her brother search for the remote and the two men muttering back and forth for her to realize who her father had said was actually dead.

The relief was sweet.

Like candy melting in her mouth.

Like love in her fucking heart.

Like sun on her face.

If Vasily was dead … then that meant Kaz had done what he needed to do.

And he would be coming for her.

Soon.

“Here,” Carmine said.

Violet walked into the dining room just in time to see her brother slide the remote down the table toward their father. Alberto grabbed it and passed Violet a quiet greeting at the same time, not bothering to mention she was, by his rules, late for dinner considering the maid had called for her a while ago.