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“I’m guessing you’re not going to tell her about…him?”
“Sometimes ignorance is bliss. I might have turned out different not knowing who my father was.”
Viking scoffed. “Different how? Like a more cheery fucking person? You’ve been a gloomy bastard since the day I met you. Some people are just wired that way.”
He may have had a point.
Viking cleared his throat. “About her mom…I figure since you’re now technically her ward, you should tell her.” He walked away, not leaving me a chance to argue with him. How convenient.
A ward? Me? There had to be a way out of this. Katya had to have some other relatives I could ship her off to.
I was going through these possibilities when Sokolov appeared beside me. I immediately steeled my features. That man had a knack for reading my emotions like a book. Luckily for me, I had little emotion in me.
“Who is who again?” Sokolov asked with a look at Angel who stood beside the chimney. “I can never keep those psycho twins apart.”
His words chafed me. Not because there wasn’t any truth to them, but of the dismissive way he spoke about the twins.
“Every man in this room has a psychopath lurking inside,” I answered, ignoring his question.
Sokolov’s lip curled. “Everyman, you say?” There was a hint of warning in his tone.
“From every fucking foot soldier to the brigadiers, all the way up to thepakhans.”
“Perhaps,” he conceded after a moment of silence.
There was no perhaps about it, but I let it go. Deep down, we all knew what we were: cold-blooded killers. No man could take the life of another so easily and without any remorse and be considered sane.
“You seem to be doing well here,” he remarked. “Now all you need is a good wife.”
Said the eternal bachelor. “I thought you didn’t believe inVorymen getting married.” Sokolov notoriously held on to the old ways, back when it was forbidden for Bratva men to start a family. A woman and kids made you vulnerable, after all.
“My time was different. Besides, I don’t need to tie the knot to have a relationship.” A man already at the top didn’t need to secure his position by marrying a Bratva princess.
“Neither do I.”
“Just as long as you remember that,” he said with an almost indiscernible nod toward Svetlana, who held court in the middle of the room.
I should’ve guessed where he was going with this. The man had eyes everywhere.
“That’s over,” I said, and he gave another nod.
Tonight they would announce her engagement. I’d never touch a woman with another man’s ring on her finger. A ring was a vow, and those were sacred.
Angel appeared by my side. “Need to talk to you,” he whispered into my ear.
I excused us from Sokolov, and followed Angel outside. Cars were still coming up the circular drive, parking behind limos and Bugattis.
“What’s up?”
“I just saw your little guest heading toward the backyard. What do you want me to do about her?”
Something about his words set me on edge. What the hell was Katya doing outside of her room?
“Where did she go?” I asked, already hauling ass.
“Gazebo.”
Angel rushed alongside me. We passed the garage, the ornate maze, and nearing the gazebo, I heard a scream.
