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“Look, Ilya. You’ve always been loyal to me. I wasn’t gonna let them kill you. And I won’t sell you out to Dima.”
His shoulders relax.
“Thank you,” he says, his voice feeble.
“I’ll handle things with my brother.” Just one more reason for him to give me shit. I should be numb to it by now, but I’m not.
He’s only in his underboss position because of me, and he prances around like he earned it.
It’s a secret I’ve never told, and one I want to bury forever.
There’s nothing worse than being betrayed by your own blood.
I take that back.
There is something worse.
When they pretend the betrayal never happened.
“Oh my God.” Natasha’s shocked murmur from behind me makes my shoulders tense. “There were two guys?”
“Yes,” I say in a tight voice, not bothering to look at her.
My spine stiffens at the sound of her bare feet padding toward us. With a quick glance over my shoulder, I see her carefully avoid the puddles of blood on the floor. She picks up a cracked vase, turning it over in her hands before placing it on a nearby table. A gun lies on the floor a few inches away from her feet and she recoils with a gasp and tiptoes around it.
“Who are you?” she asks Ilya as she stops next to me. “One of the bad guys? Or one of the worse guys?”
His lips quiver as he forces a small smile at her. “Are those my only choices?”
“I don’t know. Give it some time. I have a feeling the ‘worst’ category isn’t far behind.”
Ilya looks between us. “I, ah, should go?”
“I’ve got this,” I say. “But go clean yourself up first. You’re a mess.”
“I’ll help,” Natasha volunteers. I furrow my brow, and she shrugs. “He may work for your family, but he didn’t try to assault me, so why the hell not be a Good Samaritan? Maybe it’ll get me some good karma. Christ knows I need it.”
I survey the damage on my blood-streaked tile floor and process the bits of information I was able to drain from the intruder before plugging him. Nikita’s loud barks jolt me. I jog to the back door and let him back inside. He jumps up and down, looking for a treat. I grab one from the cabinet and he grabs it in his teeth. But instead of devouring it, he darts into the foyer and sniffs around the dead guy.
A frustrated sigh escapes my lips. “No, Nikita. Off.”
He turns his brown eyes toward me but backs away.
What the fuck did Dima leave out of his grand plan to marry the princess of the Resnov empire?
This was a revenge play.
Those guys wanted to kill Natasha because of something Dima did.
And once again, I’m left holding my dick in my hand because he didn’t bother to prepare me for an attack.
I scrub a hand down the front of my face when my phone rings before swiping to accept the call from my sister. “What’s up, Val?”
“You sound stressed.”
“I thought I was stressed in the clink, you know, protecting my ass from invasion. But out here in real life,” I shake my head and pick up the cracked vase that Natasha examined a few minutes earlier. “There’s a lot more shit to deal with, you know?”
“Yeah,” she says with a shuddering sigh.
