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Roman
Roman tapped his fingers on the diner’s scratched tabletop and assessed the security situation.
Max, sitting across from him, his gun bulging under his leather jacket.
The shadow of Pavel and Leo, the two men who’d become Roman’s security detail, standing in front of the diner’s glass doors.
Ilya and Danny— newly defected associates who worked for Roman’s father — pacing the sidewalk, their breath clouding the cold night air as their watchful gazes roamed the streets that intersected at Kellogg’s Diner in Brooklyn.
It was enough. Roman was almost sure of it.
And it wasn’t like he couldn’t protect himself. He felt the weight of his own weapon, nestled against his side like a lover, and relaxed a little.
“Once we get the location, we’ll have to act fast,” Roman said.
“I know,” Max said. “We’re ready.”
It had been three weeks since Roman’s father had kidnapped Ruby. Three weeks since Adam had taken physical custody of Olivia.
Which is how Roman knew they were working together.
While Ruby’s father and sister made public pleas for her safe return, Adam remained silent, dropping Olivia off at school, picking her up at the end of the day like he was angling for Father of the Year.
Like he hadn’t been party to the kidnapping of Olivia’s mother.
Or worse.
No, Roman wouldn’t think about that. He was already riding the knife’s edge of his sanity, his need to punish — to hurt, to maim, to kill — a scarlet curtain ready to drop over his sense of reason at any moment.
And Ruby needed him to be reasonable.
For now.
The time would come for the violence he craved, but not yet.
“More coffee?”
Roman looked up at the waitress, a young blonde woman who’d been nervously serving them since they’d arrived.
He didn’t blame her. It was obvious they weren’t just two bros out for a late-night cup of coffee.
“Please,” Roman said.
She poured more coffee from the carafe and Roman caught the eye of the balding man behind the register before his gaze slid away. Mel, the diner’s owner, wasn’t happy to have one of his booths occupied by Roman and Max, a full security contingent standing like Rottweilers outside of the place, but he didn’t have much of a choice.
He owed Roman quite a lot of money.
Well, technically he owned the Kalashnik bratva a lot of money, but the diner was in one of the areas Roman had seized in the three weeks since he’d begun the takeover of the bratva.
His father, Igor, had thought his kidnapping of Ruby would stay Roman’s hand. Instead it had only made Roman more determined to take Igor down.
What kind of monster kidnapped an innocent woman? A mother? What kind of man worked with the woman’s ex-husband to steal her child from her arms?
Roman knew the answer: the kind of man who didn’t deserve the power he wielded.
His gaze was drawn to movement at the door and a second later Matvey David entered the diner looking somber in dark jeans and a tailored blazer as he scanned the diner.
