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“I’ll secure a deal with you. You’re a man of your word.”
“I was,” I admit. “That has been the status quo. But I’m not as scared of change as you are. Maybe I’m ready to shake things up.”
Sergey swallows. I feel the desperate gulp against my arm. He’s nervous.
And it hits me then—all at once. Sergey is not some all-powerful leader. He isn’t special.
He is a man. A selfish, prideful, foolish man.
And, worst of all, he’s desperate.
Otherwise, he wouldn’t be standing here in front of me. If he had any other option available to him, he never would have come to see me. Especially after I stabbed him in the gut. But he is pressed into a corner, and he doesn’t see another way out.
“If the Bratva is as unsteady as you seem to think, you wouldn’t need to secure a deal with me to survive,” I tell him. “Would you?”
Sergey doesn’t answer. His eyes are wide, and he keeps looking at the door like he expects someone to burst in and save him.
“Would you?” I repeat, squeezing the air out of him.
“I have allies that would surprise even you,” he rasps. “Work with me, and you can keep your Bratva. You can even become CEO of Viktorov Industries again.”
I lean closer, my teeth bared. “Fuck the Bratva and fuck Viktorov Industries.”
“Some loyal don you are,” he spits.
“Nothing is more important to me than my family. Nothing matters more than Piper and Benjamin.”And my unborn child.“Do you have her?”
“No.”
“Don’t fucking lie to me.”
“I’m not,” he says. “Idon’t have her. But like I said, I have a lot of allies.”
I’m torn between the urge to grab my phone and call to check on Piper and to keep interrogating Sergey. I should have stayed home with her. I shouldn’t have left her alone. Piper’s face floods my mind, and I have to wade through the images to focus on the task at hand.
“I have allies, too. Detective Rooney has proven to be well worth the money. He’ll bury you so deep that no one will remember your fucking name.”
He blinks, realizing I’m serious. “I’ll tell you where Piper is if you let me go. I’ll flee. You’ll never see me again.”
I wrinkle my nose. “Desperation does not look good on you. You are a rat fleeing a sinking ship. There’s nowhere to go, but you keep scurrying in search of a lifeboat.”
“You don’t understand. Piper is in danger… right now. If you don’t listen to me, she’ll die. Benjamin, too.”
I freeze, turning on him with full intensity. “What?”
“Kreshnik has them both. He’s holding them as ransom to secure the Bratva from you. But if you listen to me, I’ll help you keep the Bratva and—”
“I don’t give a fuck about the Bratva,” I growl. “And I don’t give a fuck about you. There is nothing in the world that would make me trust you after everything you’ve done. You deserve to die, and I’ll see that it happens. Either with my own hands or in prison. Either way, there is no happy ending for you.”
Sergey shakes his head. “I took you from a nobody—anobody—and gave you the fucking world. And this is how you repay me? By tossing me aside for some dead weight whore who can’t give you a fucking thing?”
“Piper has given me more than you could ever imagine. She has given me everything I could ever need.”
There’s not a single cell of my body that doesn’t believe that statement.
He snorts. “And when she dies, you’ll be broken. Your enemies know that. They’ll never stop going after her.”
“I can keep her safe.”
