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“I want to talk to my father,” I demand.
Alexander pushes me roughly back into the chair, and I glare at him, hating him until it burns my brain.
“No one cares what you want,” Gunsyn replies coldly. “You’re nothing but a pawn in our game. You’re not important.”
I clench my jaw to prevent the hysteria. “You’re wrong. I’m the only thing that matters. You need me to get to my father.”
“Your father is a traitor.” Gunsyn grabs my arm and shakes me hard. “And now he’s killed a brigadier. He doesn’t deserve anything but death.”
His eyes lock on mine, and I know I have to tread carefully. But maybe not as carefully as the Bratva. One down—three to go. And that’s enough to keep me hoping.
“Let’s get moving,” Gunsyn commands, locking the door when they finally leave.
56
NIKOLAI
“Where is she?”
Gunsyn’s dark cigarette stinks in the stagnant air, even in this cavernous space. Pale smoke spirals up to the ceiling before an exhaust fan whisks it away. He stands over Ippolit’s corpse and eyes me as if I’m responsible.
Anton turns to me, still and silent. He arrived after the shooting, and his men are searching the building as we speak. But Zakhar is long gone.
While I was in transit, Larissa phoned me in a rage, saying the brigadiers had entered her home, intimidated her with a gun, and then taken Eden.
Which makes me not exactly unhappy to see Ippolit on the floor with a hole in his head.
“Where is she?” I ask Gunsyn again.
He motions toward the floor. “Shouldn’t you be more concerned withthis?”
“What concerns me is that Zakhar is still alive.” I shake my head. “And you’re holding his daughter captive in an undisclosed location withoutmypermission.”
Gunsyn loses the tone. “We’re just doing our best not to end up like our dear friend here.”
“And I told him not to confront Zakhar.” I round on Gunsyn, recalling how I warned Ippolit about confronting Zakhar alone. “Imagine if he’d obeyed. He’d still be alive.”
Gunsyn casts a stern gaze at Ippolit’s corpse and then scowls at Anton, silently watching the whole scene. “Have your men clean him up,” he barks at him.
Anton’s wide headlight gaze fixes on me, and I nod my consent.
In seconds, Ippolit’s body is rolled into a tarp, loaded into the back of an SUV, and heading toward Manhattan. The bullet will be removed, and Ippolit’s death certificate will state natural causes. The obituary will read that he passed away peacefully in his sleep in his own bed. His legacy has been reduced to no more than a spot of blood on the floor.
“Where is she?” I ask viciously again.
“She is safely tucked away, Nikolai Gennadyevich,” replies Alexander, brushing imaginary dust off his superbly tailored jacket. “Not too far from here.”
I glare at him, wondering for the first time why I’ve never questioned how he can afford his costly apparel.
“Did you hear the gunshot?” I ask, lifting an eyebrow.
“No,” Alexander answers with an inscrutable tone in his voice.
“Then how did you know to come here?” I ask coldly.
Gunsyn tilts his chin in the air. “Ippolit called for backup.”
“Bullshit,” Pavel hisses before I can respond. “We offered him backup, but he refused it.”
