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Then Sabrina sent me the first picture of herself. Nothing sexy or posed—in fact, she was dressed in a steel-blue coverall and work boots, grease up to her elbows, and a smear across one cheek. She was crouched down at the wheel of the bike, working a wrench, her forearm taut and tendons standing out on the back of her hand. She glanced back over her shoulder, probably as someone called her name—that’s when the photo was taken.
The fact that she sent me this picture over any other pleased me in a way I can hardly explain. It was a photo of her in her favorite place, doing what she loves. She sent me a picture of the real Sabrina — which is who I most want to know.
And yes, I have jerked off to that picture, though it isn’t a nude. Because that’s how attracted I am to this girl. That’s how badly I want her. I’m more aroused by a candid shot of her than the raunchiest porn.
The flight to America felt like it took years. We flew commercial. Even though we had those Delta One seats where you can lay down entirely in an enclosed pod like you’re having an MRI taken, I still couldn’t sleep a minute. I wanted to see Sabrina with a hunger that kept me awake all through the night.
We had been texting more and more frequently.
She kept me updated on her activities and I told her how I’d found a house for me and the Wolfpack, a base of operations to begin our business in Moscow.
Sabrina pretended only a casual level of interest, but her questions were probing enough for me to assume that she hadn’t forgotten my offer, nor entirely dismissed it.
We each have our excuse for this visit.
She’s here to see Nix, her old roommate. Nix is living in a mansion on the cliffs above a cold northern beach, the mansion that now houses my Uncle Ivan and his wife, my cousins Rafe and Freya, and several of my uncle’s men.
My own mother and father have come along with me, and also my brother Kade. To have the Petrov family whole again is so deeply satisfying that we’ve taken every opportunity to visit.
I’m relieved to see Ivan and Sloane looking something like themselves again. Though Ivan was the one trapped in a windowless cell in the bottom of a mine, the physical toll on his wife was almost as severe. She grew thin and worn with every day that passed, until she became a shadow of herself. If Ivan had died before we found him, she might have died, too—by her own hand, or by the kind of medical accident that really is no mystery at all if one understands the effects of stress on the body.
Rafe is also himself once more, in the sense that I can call him by his name and acknowledge him as my cousin.
The lies we had to tell to protect our family have cost us all.
The High Table hasn’t forgotten that we concealed my uncle’s capture from the Bratva. They pretend that they would have helped us, but we know the form their “help” would have taken—they would have descended on us like hyenas, ripping apart the carcass of our empire and dividing it amongst themselves. Putting Sloane under house arrest for her own “protection.” Impeding my father from paying the monthly ransom that kept Ivan alive.
The Bratva are friends of convenience. As in any animal pack, if the dominant male can’t fight off his challengers, he’s soon deposed. He cannot rule in absentia.
Ivan’s empire was already fracturing as he shifted his focus to his holdings in America. Sloane was first to recognize the vast potential of the legalization of marijuana in Washington and Colorado. Before the legislation had even passed, she and Ivan bought up land for farming and prime real estate for dispensaries. The money that poured in was a blessing and a curse, because it made them rich beyond measure, but also attracted the attention of old enemies.
Parted from Russia for three years, it seems my uncle has no desire to return. He’s made his home here on the West Coast, gifting the monastery in St. Petersburg to my father. Now my father isPakhanof St. Petersburg, subordinate no longer.
I could stay at the monastery with him. But to my mind, St. Petersburg is for the younger brother. Kade can inherit when my father retires. Moscow is the prize.
Moscow has never been controlled by one man. At best, it’s been divided in four portions, with the Markovs taking the largest share. Currently, a dozen bosses vie for power in the vacuum created by my father’s absence and the death of several key players.
It’s all up for grabs. And I want it all.
I’m not arrogant enough to think I can do it alone.
I’ve already assembled my Wolfpack, hand-picked and trained by me alone. Sabrina is the last piece.
It might seem like madness to bring a woman in the mix, but I can see the equation in its entirety, the fulness of what we need to succeed. Sabrina is crucial. She’s the seasoning on the steak. The ingredient that no one else possesses.
I don’t need more men created in my image.
I need something different.
Someone who challenges me. Someone with their own mind and their own ideas. Someone shaped in an entirely separate world.
This is my vision, and I’m here to make it a reality.
When I see her in the flesh, everything I planned to say evaporates from my mind, leaving me speechless.
She’s standing next to Nix and Rafe, wearing an old pair of denim shorts and a flannel shirt, barefooted. So radiant in the summer sunshine that she could almost blind me.
I feel my mother glance from Sabrina to me, intuiting the connection between us, or else tipped off by my brother.
