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“Will you fucking relax? She’s fine,” Ruslan says, stepping in front of me. “So she had a little panic attack. What woman wouldn’t in her shoes? Violently abducted, drugged, forced to marry a man she hates—”
My fist meets his jaw, shutting him up for once. He staggers back and grins, revealing bloody teeth. “You’ve been itching to do that all morning, haven’t you?” He spits over the railing into the water below. “What would your new wife say if she saw that?”
“Fuck you.” If not for Alina, I wouldn’t stop with just one swing, and he knows it. When we get on each other’s nerves like this, we don’t pull punches. But a real sparring is not in the cards today, not unless I want my wife to see that I am the violent savage she believes me to be.
My wife. I savor the words in my mind, even as anger at my brother boils inside me. He’s been against my betrothal to Alina from the start—not that I ever asked for his opinion.
Thankfully, he seems to realize that I’m reaching the limits of my tolerance. “Father sent a message a few minutes ago,” he says, his expression turning serious. “Wants to speak to you.”
A grim smile cuts across my face. “Tell him I’m busy getting married.”
“Gladly.” Ruslan’s smile mirrors mine. On this, we’re on the same page. “Also, heard from Lykov. The Molotovs are kicking up a shitstorm. Already, two of our warehouses near Moscow have been raided, and there was a cyberattack on our subsidiary in Kazakhstan.”
As expected. “Tell Lykov he’s authorized to spend whatever he needs to boost security at all our places of operations. They’ll be coming for us in any way they can.”
Alina’s brothers won’t take the attack on Nikolai’s compound and my claiming of Alina lying down. I’ve known that from the start. What I did was the equivalent of a war declaration, and things are about to get bloody.
“He’s already on it,” Ruslan says. “Also, we’re going to liaise with the sub in a couple of days.”
“Good.”
That means Ruslan is finally heading home to take up the reins in my absence. He insisted on helping me with the operation in Idaho, but that’s done and over with. So is the wedding. There’s no longer any reason for him to be here, and one of us needs to be in Moscow, overseeing our business affairs—especially given our father’s condition.
Ruslan is already turning to go when I ask quietly, “How is he?”
My brother stops and faces me, eyebrows arched. “You really want to know?” At my stony look, he sighs and says, “Doctors think he’s got weeks at this point. Maybe less.”
Something twists in my chest, like a screw burrowing deeper. Turning away to conceal my expression, I walk over to the railing and stare out at the dark blue water that shimmers calmly under the sun.
A moment later, Ruslan joins me.
“It’s not your fault, you know,” he says, his gaze locked on the horizon as I glance at him. “Nor mine. It’s on him, all of it.”
I look back at the water. “I know.”
“I’m not sure you do.”
I stay silent because what is there to say? There’s no changing the past, no fixing what’s been irreparably broken. Up until a few weeks ago, when Ruslan found our sister’s teenage diary, I was blind. Now I see it all, and the rage that consumes me is so toxic I have no choice but to stay away from Moscow until the man who sired us takes his last foul breath.
“He’s been talking about Slava again,” Ruslan says carefully. “Demanding that we take him from the Molotovs.”
“That’s not the deal I made.”
Ruslan faces me, resting one forearm on the railing. “Why did you make that deal? We’d won. A little more effort, and it could’ve all been over. You could’ve had Alina and the boy.”
“Not without killing her brother.”
Ruslan led the team that took out the guards at the perimeter of the compound, so he wasn’t with me by the garage. He didn’t see the lethal determination in Nikolai Molotov’s eyes during our stand-off. Alina’s brother would’ve fought to the death to protect his family and keep his son. More importantly, Slava wanted to be kept. My nephew chose his father and his new wife over me, and after reading Ksenia’s diary, I can’t say he’s made the wrong choice. If I’d known then what I know now, if Ruslan had found the diary sooner, if Ksenia had just confided in me—
“And why not kill him?” Ruslan asks, cutting into my pointless ruminations. “One less Molotov to worry about.”
I raise my eyebrows. “You know I’m married to a Molotov, right?”
“She’s a Leonov now.”
Yes, she is. I can’t help a surge of satisfaction at the thought. But to Ruslan, I say, “That doesn’t mean she wouldn’t hate me for killing her brother.”
