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A sound floated to us from the hall, and my tension relaxed a notch.I swallowed my guilt and lifted my gun, aiming it at the ceiling in a peaceful gesture. Nikolai frowned at me. “I’m not going to kill my brother. You’re right. I don’t think I can come back from that.”
Nikolai’s gun wavered as he stared at me, trying to figure out what the fuck I was thinking.
Then the door to the room opened, and men spilled in. Dressed in black, they cut forbidding, capable figures as they moved through the darkness.
“Gun down, now!” someone shouted at Nikolai as four other armed men surrounded him.
He turned his puzzled face to mine as he slowly lowered his weapon.
Hard, slow footsteps rang through the warehouse, and the men shifted to let an older, distinguished looking man stroll into the space.
Antonio De Sanctis.
“Well, Kirill, it looks like you deliver on your promises after all,” Antonio said. He turned and strolled toward Nikolai and looked him up and down. “This will do fine, along with those deals we discussed.”
“Of course.”
Antonio looked around the room, taking in Viktor’s body slumped on the ground, then turned back to me and clapped his hands together. “Congratulations on your ascension, Kirill Chernov,pakhan.”
“Kirill, what’s happening?” Molly asked, gripping my hand, and pressing herself against my side.
“The De Sanctis’ need their pound of flesh,” I told her. “They’ll take it from Nikolai.”
Nikolai’s eyes were fixed on mine. There was a lot in that look, surprise, a reluctant respect for the move, and betrayal.
“A neat ending to this whole mess,” Antonio said.
“You can’t do this to your own brother,” Molly exclaimed softly.
“He’s alive. That’s the most I can do for him. There was only ever going to be one of us walking out of here, Mallory. This is mercy,” I told her flatly.
Antonio nodded and laughed. “We’ll see how Nikolai feels about that mercy once I’m done with him,” he said with grim humor. Then he turned to his men and nodded toward the door. “Andiamo, tutti.”
The group moved toward the door as Ivan groaned from the corner and turned over. The last I saw of my brother was his dark eyes fixed on mine as he was taken away at gunpoint.
A heavy weight settled in my chest, but that was nothing new. If I hadn’t taken Nikolai out, he would have challenged me for the title of boss, and I couldn’t keep Molly safe if I wasn’t thepakhan.He wasn’t dead, and that was the biggest mercy I could extend to him.
Of course, he could get out of the De Sanctis grip one day, and come after me in revenge, but I didn’t think he would. Niko knew when he was beaten, and besides, he’d shown tonight that somewhere beneath the abuse, trauma, and darkness in his soul, he cared about something. He cared about Mallory, and the baby, and maybe he even cared a little about me.
“What the fuck happened?” Ivan groaned from the ground. “Did I miss something important?” He turned his head and looked around the dark room strewn with bodies.
My rusty, reluctant laugh tore from my chest as I took in the carnage. I laughed as Molly and Ivan stared at me.“Nothing much, brother. But you have been promoted.”
Ivan raised an eyebrow at me. “To what?”
“Bodyguard to thepakhan.”
Ivan whistled loudly, and a broad smile split his face. “I like the sound of that. It has a nice ring to it.”
“It does, doesn’t it?” I pulled Molly to me and pressed her close, still unable to believe we were both standing after that nightmare. “And you?”
“And me, what?”
“Queen of the Chernov bratva. How does that sound?”
She let out a long breath, the weight of everything that had happened clearly settling on her conscience. No doubt she was going to bother me about Nikolai, and before long, I’d be sacrificing even more business to Antonio De Sanctis to get him back, but for now, I put him out of my mind.
She looked at my neck, frowning as she took in the blood wreathing it from when Nikolai had held me at knifepoint.“You’re hurt.”
