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Nikolai grinned at me as he came, his face flecked with blood.“You finally joined us, brother. Mallory and I were starting to get bored waiting for you.”
With two long steps, I seized him and struck him two, three times before pulling back. I grabbed my gun while he sank to his knees, spitting blood on the ground.
“Any last words?” I asked, leveling the gun on his forehead.
He grinned at me, his teeth shiny and red. “I could ask you the same thing. Don’t you have any last questions for me?”
“Just one. Why? Why did you touch her?” The question pushed through my lips.
Bratva was the most violent of the powers in New York, and I wasn’t sure there was a code among killers. But the last unjaded part of me thought there might be a code among brothers. That part had died when Nikolai took Mallory.
“That’s not the right question, Kirill,” Nikolai mocked. He swayed, and I tracked his movements with my gun. “Ask me why I didn’t kill her.”
I couldn’t bring myself to. I knew he had to die to end this succession battle between us, but he’d made it much easier for me to kill him when he took Molly.
“Ask me!” Nikolai roared so loudly that it seemed to shake the surrounding trees. He raised his hand and gripped the barrel of my gun, pressing it against his forehead so there was no chance of missing. “Ask me, and then you can finish this.”
“Why didn’t you kill her?”
“Because, brother, I’m finished carrying out father’s requests like a good little lapdog,” Nikolai said quietly.
I shook my head. “Viktor didn’t know about this.”
“Is that what he told you? And you believed him? After all this time, you still have no idea what he’s capable of, do you? Let me guess. He made you think I was interested in pushing the flesh trade? Me? Even though I’d never hurt a woman and my own mother—” He broke off, his voice ragged.
Tension and misgivings gathered in my belly like lumps of coal.“You’re lying,” I said, but it didn’t sound right. It didn’t make sense that Nikolai had brought Mallory here only to leave her unharmed and have so few men with him. None of this made sense. “Why would he have you do this?”
“He didn’t, Kirill. Your little princess should have died in your bed with a bullet to the brain, left there for you to understand who was boss of the Chernov family. That’s what he’d have me do.”
Nikolai’s eyes flew over his shoulder, and I followed them. A group had turned the corner—a few of the men I had brought with me from New York. The ones I’d been surprised were on our side in this task.
“Kirill, I have a bad feeling he’s telling the truth,” Ivan muttered behind me, already turning and raising his weapon.
So did I, but I’d been so focused on killing Nikolai for days that it was difficult to switch over in my head. Then I realized the men approaching had their guns trained on me, not my brother.
I turned back to Nikolai as he let go of my gun and got up, no longer worried I’d shoot him since the men I’d brought with me had double-crossed me. If I lived through this, I’d see all of them dead. Two approached, training guns on Ivan and me, and took our weapons.
“So, what now?” I asked, murderously angry and trying hard to get a read on the situation.
“Now, we talk, brother to brother. Come on. It’s cold out here,” he said, turning toward the house.
“Wait. I have to get Mallory,” I called to my brother.
Shooting a dirty look at the man holding a gun on me—a man on my side only ten minutes ago—I stared toward the tree line. I saw Mallory in her oddly prepared outfit and gestured for her to come back to me. I didn’t know what Niko had planned, but it seemed clear he wasn’t going to hurt her.
She stayed where she was. I gestured again, and she took a step back into the trees. Alarm filled me.
“Nikolai, send someone to get her,” I asked my brother. I couldn’t go anywhere, as every time I moved, the goon behind me poked the gun harder between my shoulders.
“I’m afraid I can’t do that,” Niko said quietly.
I blinked at him. “What the fuck does that mean?”
Molly was backing into the trees; her eyes fixed on mine. I didn’t like her expression at all. It was cold and reserved. It was so unlike her. I couldn’t get a read on it.
“It means she’s leaving you,bratan,and you have no choice but to let her go.”
I looked desperately at Molly as she took another step toward the trees, half-turned, ready to run. I got the look now; it clicked inside me.
