Page 175 of Fallen Rook

Something had profoundly changed in him since his marriage to Sofia, and I wondered how much of it we’d missed while we were too busy leading our own lives.

“Luca,” Achilles warned.

“Put yourself in my shoes. If Sofia was Tierney.”

Achilles swore under his breath, pouring the entire bottle of acid inside.

Nobody spoke. Luca teetered on the edge of detonation. Achilles looked like he kind of wished for it—it meant that he’d be the don. And Tiernan? He was busy texting with his wife, who had to go through the distress of not having her husband personally feed her grapes and fan her with a palm leaf.

Luca’s phone buzzed. He glanced at the screen before answering.

“Tristan, you’re on speaker.”

“Write down an address. You’ll land just in time for a Bratva meeting.”

Luca glanced at Achilles, who grunted. “Is it the Indian Spring warehouse?”

“You know it?” Tristan asked.

“Yup.”

“There you have it.”

“Alex and Jeremie gonna be there?” I asked.

“Fat chance,” Tristan drawled. “All of my sources indicate that Jeremie’s out of the country.”

“And Alex?”

“You know how the pakhan is. Elusive as disappearing ink.”

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” Luca shot up, kicking everything in sight. He actually broke a table and dented a drink cart. “Do you know where?”

“My sources aren’t budging,” Tristan said. “Anyway, gotta go. These high-profile diplomats aren’t going to off themselves.”

He disconnected the call.

We all stared at each other. We were entering a war zone, and no amount of preparation was enough for what awaited on the other side.

“If the Rasputins do something to Sofia to get their point across…” Luca trailed off.

“Don’t think that way,” Tiernan ordered him. “You’re getting your wife back.”

Troy had fallen. The kingdom my father built was in shambles. We were at war with the Bratva and among ourselves. And yet Luca cared little about anything other than the family he’d seemed reluctant to build with Sofia only a couple years ago.

Luca picked up his double-barreled Nitro Express, pushing the top lever and loading it. “I know.”

First, we set the IED behind a bush outside the Bratva’s warehouse entrance.

We waited until fifteen or so soldiers had gathered around the doors, smoking and shooting the shit, before activating the bomb. It exploded in a cloud of orange and black smoke. We watched from across the street as the soldiers who didn’t die on detonation ran around, aflame, before succumbing to the fire eating them alive. The doors had melted into nothing. We waited a few more minutes for the fire and residual shrapnel to settle. Then we pushed the doors to our Cadillacs open and strolled toward the warehouse.

The weapons factory was empty on the ground and second floors. I looked around, clutching my rifle. “The fuck is that meeting?”

“Probably the basement. There’s a secret room downstairs. We found out about it when Tiernan thought he was ambushing Alex.” Achilles tilted his head right, and we all followed him to a closet-size metal locker. He pushed it easily across the wall, exposing a secret door.

Taking a step back for momentum, I kicked the door down. It shattered without resistance, splintering into two from the force of my boot.

Tossing a tear gas can down the stairway, I listened as it hissed, then exploded.