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ZAK
Istand in front of the mirror in my hotel room and adjust my bow tie. I grab the tube of gel, squeeze it into my hand, and rub it into my hair, slicking it back.
“You clean up pretty good,” my brother Danil says with a smirk. “Nice penguin suit.”
I flip off my phone screen. “I’ve gotta blend.”
“Just make sure nobody sees you. There’s a lot at stake, and if they find out you’re there, they will shoot you on sight, got it?” My other brother Luka’s face comes into view, but he’s not smiling. His forehead is pinched, his jaw tense.
For the past month, we’ve all been on edge, wondering when the other shoe will drop. After Danil killed Adrian Ivanova at a private, executive airfield in Miami, we’ve all been waiting for blowback. His brother Branko, our mortal enemy, won’t stay buried in his hole forever. He will come for us, and when he does, we’re gonna need leverage.
That’s why I’m here at the Four Seasons Resort in Palm Beach…to steal our insurance policy.
I pick up my Glock 19 and stick it in the back of my pants where it’s hidden by the tuxedo jacket. “I’m ready.”
“Okay, so you’ve got the layout. Alek sent pictures of the whole event wing. Get in, get out, and get the hell back to Miami.” Luka sweeps a hand through his hair. “We still need to figure out how the hell to get into that safety deposit box in the Bahamas.”
A safety deposit box that requires a key, and not two, but three, codes to open.
“You’d think Olek stuck the codes to the nuclear football in that box with the levels of security needed to unlock it.” I let out a dry laugh.
“Branko wants what’s inside that box as badly as we do, so unless we have something he wants as a bargaining chip, he’ll bulldoze us to get to it.”
“He’s got nobody left. How’s he gonna take us out by himself?”
I glance at Danil on the screen and shake my head. “Come on, D, a guy like that has armies just waiting to launch an unexpected attack.”
“According to Alek, Red Ladro has the same armies waiting to retaliate if Branko tries anything.”
“Yeah, and Valentina is part of that army.” Luka rubs the back of his head, pacing back and forth in front of his desk in his home office. “We need to do everything we can to protect her.”
My spine stiffens at the mention of my sister’s name. She’s been working for Alek for the past couple of years trying to uncover the whereabouts of Branko Ivanova. And it seems like every time we get close, he buries himself farther in the trenches, so fucking deep, I’m beginning to wonder if we’ll ever find the motherfucker who’s killed a third of my family.
“So hang up the damn phone and let me get to work. I’ll call you when it’s done.”
“Remember what I said, Z. In and out. If the groom or any of his thug ass goons sees you—”
“The groom is more focused on his dick being ridden later tonight than on me crashing his wedding.”
Luka narrows his eyes. “You just make sure that the only thing his dick will be riding is his hand.”
I smirk and click to end the call. One last look in the mirror makes me cringe.
I really do look like one of the waiters.
A few minutes, and a few private staff elevator rides later, I walk into the massive kitchen. Men and women dressed in the same lame ass outfits as I am fly past with trays of intricately designed appetizers for the cocktail hour. I pick one up and follow a line of servers out the swinging doors.
Except I don’t enter the cocktail reception.
I take a sharp right down a private hallway.
After studying the pictures and the schedule for the event, I know exactly how much time I have to do my job. But my window of opportunity is damn small, and the risks of being caught are nothing less than deadly.
Not only for me, but for my brothers and sisters, too.
I duck around a marble column, pretending to arrange what’s on my tray when loud giggles and voices hit the air. A gaggle of bridesmaids in pink dance around in the hallway, champagne flutes clutched in their hands. All together they look like a cloud of cotton candy.
“Picture time, ladies,” a deep voice says. A man with a camera appears from the opposite direction. “Where’s my bride?”
