Page 1 of Marked By the Devil

1

VIKTOR

Ifollowed my brothers, ready to roll my eyes at their yakking on and on.

If they weren’t talking about their wives, they were discussing how hard it was to choose a name for a baby. And if they weren’t stuck on those topics, they were comparing who had it worse between sleeping in bed with a pregnant woman who could never get comfortable, thus tossing and turning all night long, and a recently pregnant woman who was frantic to master the fine art of breastfeeding and having a “good” latch. Not a mediocre one. It had to be a good one.

We headed through the slight crowd near the club, moving as one. All three of us, Adrik, Maksim, and I were like royalty on the Strip. As the sons of Dmitri Volkov, the Pakhan of the biggest empire in this region of the country, we were princes. Leaders. The elite. Suited up, looking ready to kill, and not giving away a hint of what secrets we kept, we filed into formation as we approached the entrance to our club where we’d be meeting a few other crime family leaders who’d called to gather and talk about the dynamics that were changing in the Las Vegas territory.

The neon lights cut against the darkness overhead. Blurs of colors came from the Sphere in the distance. Noises surrounded us, from the horns as cars honked on the congested streets, the din of pedestrians and solicitors on the sidewalk, the booming sounds of vendors as they enticed people to blow their money on cheap thrills, to the blasting music wafting out from bars and restaurants.

It was chaos.

Sin City at its finest.

Yet, here we were, passing the time with talks about nipples. Not the kind like the showgirls would flash in this gritty city. But latex or silicone. Flat or nubbed.

“If Luka doesn’t learn to sleep for more than ten minutes, he has to use a pacifier,” Adrik said of his one-month-old son.

Maksim glanced at him as we neared the door. “Flat-nippled pacifiers? Because Carina read that they can hinder⁠—”

I let my head drop back as I groaned. “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” I drawled behind them. “Do you hear yourselves?”

Adrik turned to flip me off, typical older-brother style. “Wait until it’s your turn for fatherhood. You’ll be saying the same shit that⁠—”

To his left, a showgirl holding up an advertisement fell back against the wall, half her cheek blown off. Where her makeup-caked flesh had been a second ago, a yawning open hole of bloody gore and bones was revealed instead. She cried out, spraying blood, but she dropped back to the wall, dead. Her sign advertising for a club thudded to her feet.

It happened so instantly, but I didn’t need even that long to react. Instinct kicked in. Danger was right around the corner—or perched up high at a window for a sniper to aim again.

The angle was what had me moving. Whoever shot her had done so from above and had been aiming at us.

“Get down!” I lunged forward, pressing Adrik low. He crouched over as I shielded him.

If he’d been one foot ahead, he would have been shot. His brains would have been blown out. His blood would be staining the wall and pavement. It was that close of an attempt on his life.

“Move, move!” Maksim reacted with me. Both of us were here to support and back up Adrik, since he was the eldest and now serving as the interim Pakhan until our father passed away and he’d assume the throne.

Backup was one thing.

Shielding our brother with our bodies was another. We weren’t alone, though, and as commotion took over the scene with passersby noticing the blown apart half of the dead woman’s face, we flanked Adrik.

Bratva security swarmed around us. The men formed a protection block so no one could reach him. Or us. All of us could be targets, but Adrik was the main one any enemy would want to eliminate.

“Get him out of here,” I ordered.

We all needed to get out of here. With the increasing pressure that the law was putting on us recently, we didn’t need to deal with the bullshit of being caught near violence in the city. Not when a civilian was getting her head blown off out in the open. Not when other crime bosses and shady entrepreneurs were about to meet us inside.

Repositioning Adrik was the critical goal, and with the number of Bratva men here to protect and serve us, almost like the Secret Service, we could.

Armed and looking out for more signs of trouble, we all scanned the area. I shot my gaze up high to the windows of the nearest buildings, alert for a sniper. I turned and checked for anyone in the lobby of the building we were about to enter.

There were too many distractions. Lights. Sounds. Movements.

But I narrowed my eyes on the balcony area where we were supposed to have met the other leaders.

Someone was running, dashing along the fire escape toward the back of the building.

Got you.