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I grit my teeth. “You always have a choice. We all do.”
He holds up his hands, a spatula still held between his fingers. “Take it up with Timofey.”
I throw my arms out wide to encompass the empty room. “He isn’t exactly here for me to argue with.”
“Then sit down and enjoy the food until he is.”
Akim’s eyes are creased at the corners. He’s silently pleading with me not to make this harder on him.
“Fine,” I say with a grimace. “But I won’t like it.”
“No,” he agrees. “I don’t suppose you will.”
28
TIMOFEY
I pound my hand on the steering wheel and scream into the upholstered ceiling.
Kreshnik Xhuvani fucking escaped. I shouldn’t be surprised. Rats have a way of wriggling themselves out of the jaws of a predator.
The airport security didn’t pose any real threat, but they made tracking Kreshnik down much harder. I had to take circuitous paths and duck out of sight. By the time I scrambled them enough to get them off my tail, I was no longer on Kreshnik’s.
Now, I have no clue where he is.
The only reason today isn’t a total loss is because I know Piper is at the mansion with Akim. At least one thing went right.
I press my head back into the cushion and rub my aching eyes. I better get used to the pain. Sleep is unlikely.
When my phone rings, I fumble for it in the cupholder and answer. “What?”
“Is that your formal greeting now?”
The familiar voice sends goosebumps up and down my arms. I sit up straight, every drop of exhaustion in me subsumed in a rush of adrenaline. “What the fuck do you want, Sergey?”
“I want to talk. It’s why I called instead of showing up on your doorstep. At least this way, you can’t kill me on sight.”
“Shame. Killing you on sight might improve my mood.”
“But it wouldn’t improve your claim on the Bratva.”
“Fuck my claim,” I snap. “And fuck you.”
He sighs. “I know I upset you, Timofey. That’s the trouble with being a parent: you don’t always get to take the path of least resistance. Sometimes, you have to do the right thing—the hard thing—even when you know there will be consequences.”
“Killing Emily was not the right thing to do. She was innocent.”
“An innocent who knew too much,” he says. “An innocent who was going to blab the truth to Rodion and see you knocked off your throne. Is that what you wish had happened?”
“If it meant Emily was still here? Then yes. But that wouldn’t have happened, because I was always better suited to leadership than Rodion. That’s why you abandoned your own son and adopted me instead. Why leave it to the genetic lottery when you can shop around a bit, right?”
“Amazing how you can turn me saving a poor, orphaned boy from the streets into a bad thing. Most people would call me a hero.”
“Most people are sheep,” I hiss. “Most people don’t know you nearly as well as I do.”
“We do know each other well, don’t we? Maybe not the way fathers and sons usually do. But we understand each other. We work well together.”
“It’s hard to work well together when you take matters into your own hands, Otets. I would have handled Rodion. I would have handled any threat against my leadership. Emily didn’t need to die because of your antiquated view on blood rights.”
