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“I am loyal,” he whimpers, punctuating every word like he might be able to hammer it into my head. His eyes keep roaming around the room, looking for a way out. He won’t find one. Men far smarter than him have tried.
“A man who has to claim he is loyal, very rarely is.” I drift towards him, and he takes a half-step back like there is any chance of escape. There isn’t.
“I don’t know what you’ve heard, Misha, but—”
“When was the last time you saw Petyr Ivanov?”
He tries and fails to school his expression to blankness. “I’ve never met the man.”
“Is that your final answer?” Konstantin asks, circling Yan slowly.
Yan looks frantically back and forth between the two of us. His left eyelid starts to twitch. “I swear to you: I haven’t betrayed you, Misha. I have been loyal to the Orlov Bratva since the moment I was recruited by your father.”
“There were only two people who knew about my marriage to Paige.”
“Me,” Konstantin supplies, beaming and folding his hands under his chin like he’s in a photo shoot for a teen magazine. Then his grin vanishes and he sneers at Yan. “And you.”
“Then it was Konstantin!” Yan crows immediately, turning back to me. “It wasn’t me.”
Konstantin moves forward lightning-fast and punches my lawyer in the gut. “Vse dlya sem’i,” he hisses. “I would die before I betrayed the family.”
Yan straightens slowly, spit clinging to the edge of his mouth.
“You have no such loyalties, do you, Yan?” I ask. “That’s why you took a meeting with Petyr Ivanov a week after Paige and I got married.”
His eyes go wide. I know so much more than he thought I did.
“Do you want to go ahead and deny it?” I ask. “Because I’d be happy to show you proof.”
“Pro tip,” Konstantin suggests, starting to circle the poor bastard again. “Don’t conduct a rendezvous with men like Petyr Ivanov in public places. There are almost always cameras.”
“I… It… It wasn’t what it looked like.”
“Unfortunately for you, we only care about what it looks like,” I say harshly.
He drops down to his knees, his prominent canines taking center stage as he tries to bargain for his life. “Please, Don Orlov,” he pleads. “Please. He—he was threatening me!”
A cruel laugh bursts out of me. “Petyr Ivanov wouldn’t have known who the fuck you were. I know you were the one who contacted him. Too bad the money he paid you to betray me will never be spent.”
“Please… Don Orlov—”
I pull out my gun, the silencer already in place. The basement is soundproof, but I don’t want to take any chances with Paige in the house. She doesn’t need to know what goes on down here. I want her sleep to be dreamless and peaceful. She deserves that much at the very least.
“I would ask if you have any last words. But to be honest, I don’t fucking care.”
I shoot him right between the eyes. It’s a subtle, groaningpop.Sort of a miserable noise with which to end a man’s life. Almost pathetic. His body falls slack, crumpling like an old rag against the cold cement floor.
Konstantin looks at the body with distaste. “Fucking rat.”
“See that the body is dealt with,” I tell him, heading towards the staircase that leads up to the main house.
“Want me to send his head to Petyr?” Konstantin calls up after me, only half-joking.
“No need. A bloody head is going to be the least of Petyr’s worries once I’m done with him.”
I leave Konstantin in the basement and climb upstairs.
I'm walking through the kitchen when I hear a familiar laugh. I round the corner and find my mother sitting in the living room with Paige.
