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I waituntil we’re at cruising altitude before I call Andrei, my oldest brother and the Kozlov Bratva pakhan. There’s no way I can avoid having this talk with him, but I know there will be questions. Questions that won’t be easy for me to answer.
He picks up after the first ring. “You still in Switzerland,brat?” Last he heard, I was paying a visit to our banker friend, not stalking the younger sister of our oldest friend.
I clear my throat. “No, that’s taken care of. Another matter came up that I had to deal with.”
“Oh yeah?” I hear him whisper something, probably to his wife, Georgia, considering the late hour, then there’s rustling as he changes locations. “What’s up?”
There’s no easy way to say this, so I just spit it out. “Alyona was attacked tonight.”
“Jesus. Is she okay?” His voice is laced with worry. Alyona is one of us; she’s practically family. Like her brother, Yulian, she grew up in our home alongside me, Andrei, and our middle brother, Daniil. Her papa was anavtoritet, right-hand to our father, the pakhan. Andrei cares for her like a little sister—if only I shared the familial sentiment.
I glance at the aisle across from me where she’s sleeping on a couch. Those long, dark eyelashes resting on her pale skin. Flawless, just like always. Right now, she’s a picture of peace, a sleeping angel, but the cocktail will wear off eventually, and I have no doubt hell’s wrath will pale in comparison to the storm she’ll unleash on me when she wakes. She promised as much just before the lights went out.
Drugging her wasn’t my finest moment, but it had to be done. She was not going to come willingly with me, and hiding out in the Alps wouldn’t cut it. Whoever is after her has the resources to track her down unless she’s expertly hidden. And that duty now falls to me.
“She’s shaken up and has a small gash on her forehead, but it’s not too bad considering.”
“What the hell happened?”
“Some psycho broke into her place and was lying in wait when she got home. Attempted to abduct her.” Andrei hisses a curse on the other end of the line. “She fought him off, managed to kill the guy, then called Gianni’s crew to clean up, which is how I was alerted to this whole shit show.”
“Fuck me.” Andrei sounds as livid as I was. He despises being caught off guard, and we’ve truly been blindsided. “Where is she now?”
I stir the ice in my two fingers of Macallan and glance out the window towards the twinkling lights of France below. “She’s with me on the jet.”
Andrei releases a grunt. “All this after I insisted Yulian take a holiday and turn off his fucking phone for once in his life. He’s going to have an absolute conniption.” He exhales heavily. “Can I talk to Alyona?”
“She’s sleeping.” Not a lie. At least not entirely.
“I suppose I’ll see her soon enough. When are you landing?”
“Soon. But we’re not coming back to the States.”
I’m met with hard silence. “Care to explain?”
“I’m taking her off-grid, to a place she won’t be found. I don’t like this,brat. The man who came for her was covered in Russian prison tattoos. He’s a vor or at least connected with one of the brotherhoods.” Everyone in our life is a target for our enemies. We’re constantly worried about Andrei’s wife and daughter, Georgia and Anya, along with Bianca and Rowan, the wives of Daniil and Yulian. They have 24/7 security. I always assumed Alyona being so far removed from our world made her a neutral party. Looks like I thought wrong.
I down another gulp of whisky, hoping to melt the fear coiling in my gut.
“You need to come home so we can figure this out together.” His voice is terse, betraying his irritation. But he softens a little to add, “You know Kira will go ballistic if you don’t bring Aly home.”
It is true, our sister and Alyona are super close, even though Kira didn’t grow up under our roof. My brothers and I weren’t even aware we had a sister until three years ago. Our mother had a child out of wedlock, a secret so tightly guarded that our father only revealed it on his deathbed four years ago. Days after she was born, Kira’s father, a ruthless bratva rival, stole her from my mother and had her raised abroad. After a very dramatic reunion that nearly saw all of us killed, Kira is now an integral part of our family and our brotherhood.
She’s also Alyona’s best friend.
“I’m taking her somewhere safe until we know more. Dima’s already on the case gathering intel,” I say, referring to my best hacker. “I respect you as pakhan and my older brother, but I won’t take a chance with her.”
Andrei’s dark laughter filters through the line. “I find it hard to believe Aly would go anywhere with you willingly.”
Alyona’s contempt for me is no secret within my family—her icy stares at every gathering have made her feelings clear. Most assume she had an unrequited crush on me, and I’d rather keep it that way. “Maybe not, but it’s for her safety. And Yulian would approve.” Mostly.
Letting out a huff of air, I slump back into the seat and glance over at Aly’s unconscious form. Without a frown, she resembles the girl I fell in love with as a teenager; the girl who’d spent hours curled up on the couch with a book or clinging to me on the back of my bike. The girl whose face turned an adorable shade of pink when she asked me for sex lessons at the start of that fateful summer.
The line falls quiet, the only noise coming from Alyona’s soft puffs of breath. “You better be fucking sure about this,” Andrei mutters. He doesn’t argue further. He knows when I make my mind up, I’m a brick wall. Unbending. Even to his authority. “As soon as we know what we’re up against, I expect you to bring her back to New York. Where are you taking her now?”
“Let’s just say we’re going to be on the move.”
