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My mind cannot wrap around it as I picture Eden’s wide gaze. She cannot be playing such a dangerous game. She’s too convincing. She’s too innocent.
“No,” I insist as my anger rises. “I don’t believe any of this. She doesn’t know anything. She can’t!”
“Stop thinking with your dick and start thinking with your brain, Kolya!” Gunsyn roars. “Are you willing to risk the Bratva for a pair of legs and a good fuck?”
My chest tightens at the thought, but I push it away. I see what they are doing. I can’t let them manipulate me. I can’t let their doubts seep into my mind. Eden is innocent. I know it.
I have to give her a chance to prove it.
And if she fails to prove her innocence … then I will show her no mercy.
“Eden Clark is mine to deal with,” I say firmly. “Not yours.”
“Very well,” Alexander says, a hint of skepticism in his posh voice. “I’m glad that everything has been laid on the table.”
My head spins, and shadows appear in the corners of the room. Matvei, Father, and Mother—their voices seem to call out to me in unintelligible whispers. I struggle with clouded thoughts, and the vodka rushes down my tightening throat. Gasping, I need to know more before I can clear my mind. Turning my attention to the brigadiers, I press them for something, anything that might help me untangle this confusion.
Eyeing each one coldly, I ask them, “What proof do you have of her involvement?”
“Ah, yes.” Ippolit glances away. His manner is stiller than water and just as deep. He pulls out his phone, taps the screen, and slides it to me.
A redhead woman working behind a bar is on the phone. But it’s not anyone that I recognize.
“This is the daughter of Vito Genovesi,” Ippolit explains. “A caporegime of Emilio Lanzzare, and a distant relative to Emilio himself.”
“I know that place …” My heart pounds in my chest, and I struggle to breathe.
And then I remember something else.
The first time I met Eden, she asked me for the address to that very same bar.
“Tell us, my pakhan,” Alexander chimes in, smugness creeping into his tone. “Today is a day that we don’t keep secrets.”
The room feels as though it’s closing in, and the shadows won’t back away. My vision darkens with the weight of this knowledge, threatening to unleash something vile in me.
“Eden asked me how to get to that bar when I first met her …” I finally say.
And just like that, strength drains from my body and I slump into the chair.
“That explains Larissa Gennadyevna’s story …” Alexander muses.
“What are you talking about?” I snap.
Alexander looks at Ippolit, and a silent decision is made that Ippolit should be the one to tell me.
“The day Eden went shopping with Larissa Gennadyevna,” Ippolit begins, “they stopped by a building owned by Vito Genovesi. The same one that his daughter ‘rents’ an apartment from, where she works in the bar on the ground floor. At first, Eden told your sister she had never been to the place, and then she told her she had worked there for a day. And then the two of them disappeared into the bathroom, seemingly arguing.”
I glare at Alexander. “The three of you questioned my sister?” I ask angrily.
“We only wanted her help filling in some gaps in our information,” Alexander interjects quickly. “Your sister is too attached to the girl. She is nursing a viper in her bosom, even if she doesn’t realize it.”
“Furthermore,” Ippolit leans forward, steepling his fingers. “We have reason to believe that Eden has found a way to communicate with her father.”
“How?” I ask.
“We’re not sure yet,” he replies nonchalantly. “But we’ve noticed that the Lanzzare are getting bolder in tailing you. The dead man at the shower was a Lanzzare informant.”
“He wanted to hurt her,” I snap, refusing to accept their accusations. “He had a knife.”
