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With one final breath, he stops to choke. A rush of blood flows from the sides of his mouth as the life drains from his body.
And as he dies, reality pummels me like a wrecking ball.
Somebody betrayed us.
My phone vibrates against my leg and I pull it out, seeing Nikolai’s name flash across the screen.
“Did you find the shooter?” he asks when I answer.
“He’s dead. I didn’t get anything out of him.” I pause, tiny hairs on the back of my neck prickling. “Is Dad…?”
A long second passes until he speaks again. “Yeah.”
My shoulders sag and I sweep a hand through my hair.
I’d been so focused on finding Val that I missed the attack entirely.
“Where is Dmitri?” I ask.
“He’s here with his family. But Luka, it couldn’t have been them. They were getting Val, remember? Dmitri was marrying her. That’s exactly what his family wanted. This attack was ordered by someone else. It had to be.”
Sirens blare. An ambulance followed by a group of police cars tear around the circular driveway, stopping short outside of the entrance. Doors fling open. Cops and EMTs jump out. We all run inside together. I retrace the steps back to ground zero, my lungs constricted by panic and fear.
We finally make it back to the area where my family crowds around Dad and Dima.
Nikolai looks up at me and shakes his head. “This is bad,” he mutters.
I lower myself to the floor next to my mother. I wrap an arm around her shoulders and hug her close to me, her sobs shattering the still and solemn air.
“Who could have done this?” She weeps into my arm. “And where is my baby girl?”
Someone just tried to take out the heads of my family, and my youngest sister is gone.
I scan the grieving faces of my family members until my eyes screech to a stop on one very pale and contorted one.
Dima.
The shooter was trying to say something to me outside, something about betrayal and family.
Dima said he’s the only one who knows the truth.
The truth about this shooting, the truth about Val’s disappearance, the truth about Dad’s business dealings with the Resnovs?
The truth about fucking what?
And how the hell can I leave Miami, my family, and Natasha without uncovering it?
