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This news was as bad as the time I’d been stabbed in the abdomen.
“My mother had siblings.”
What else had she kept from me?
“I had a son.” Kuznetsov stared into his glass as he swirled the red wine around the base. Soon, his head was moving with the motion. “His name was Aleks.”
“Was?” Conor asked quietly, his fingers still locked around mine.
Kuznetsov shot him a glance. “Yes, he’s dead.”
Out of nowhere, Conor straightened up so fast he nearly bounced on his seat. “It wasn’t—”
The old man sniffed. “No. Your band of Irish hooligans didn’t kill him.”
“Oh. I just figured that might be why I was here.”
“Who did?” I slipped in.
Kuznetsov hitched a shoulder. “I have no idea.”
“I thought you were—”
“All-seeing and all-knowing?” Kuznetsov snorted at Conor. “Black is one of our more zealous believers.”
“I’d never have guessed,” Conor mumbled.
Anger shot through my veins, as if they were filled with gas at the mention of her goddamn name.
Temperance fucking Black was next on my shit list.
She was going to regret sharing my secrets with this old bastard, and Dead To Me would too if she knew her cousin was involved with these secret society numbnuts.
“Where did he die?” Conor queried.
“The US.”
“I don’t understand how this, as sad as it is,” Conor said politely, “has anything to do with helping bring down the Sparrows.”
Kuznetsov focused on me, his blurry eyes seeming lucid as he rumbled, “I want you to find my granddaughter and bring her home to me, and I want you to find who killed my son and seek vengeance on his behalf.”
Conor sniffed. “I knew this Brotherhood was as corrupt as the Sparrows.”
Kuznetsov’s attention snapped away from me so he could glower at him. “We are not. As the Union, we are beyond reproach, but I’m an old man. I have lost all my family. God only knows how much time I have left, and if I can spend those years with children who are my blood, then I will.”
I frowned at him. “I don’t want to spend time with you.”
“You might like me if you were open to the idea.”
“I doubt it.”
Kuznetsov’s top lip curled into a snarl. “Then how about this? Your task is now threefold. You will avenge my son’s death, you will find my other granddaughter, and you will spend time with me before I die if you ever want the Sparrows to be taken down.”
“You could live until you’re a hundred,” I bitched.
“Then you’re about to be very well acquainted with Dubrovnik, aren’t you?” he sniped.
Conor cleared his throat. “Before you two trigger World War Four over empty soup bowls, I have to ask how you believe you can eradicate the Sparrows? I assume you wouldn’t offer your granddaughter hope without being able to follow through with it…”
