AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I understand why. Liza’s father is swaying and pontificating loudly into the ear of the Polish Ambassador, who looks less than impressed.
“I’ll help you,” I offer.
Boris is built like a bull—there’s no way petite Liza could take him on her own. With the promise of a cigar and a fresh glass of liqueur, we’re able to cajole him outside to one of the empty terraces off the main ballroom.
“Sit, Papa,” Liza demands, settling him into a chair and handing him a glass of water.
“Vodka?” he asks hopefully.
“No. You don’t need any more to drink,” she hisses. “You need to sober up.”
“My Elizaveta.” He chuckles. “Always taking care of your papa. A good girl, right?” He looks at me to make his point, and that’s when he tilts his head to the side, squinting. “Who are you? I recognize you from somewhere.”
Liza crosses her arms over her chest. “It’s my old friend, Kira Antonov. You remember her—we were roommates in school.”
His eyebrows knit together. "Oleg Antonov's daughter?"
"Papa! She doesn’t want to be reminded of that.”
He points in my direction. "Hard to believe, looking at her, that this little thing was behind the coup to kill Oleg and take over the Antonov Bratva."
My stomach twists. My family’s legacy is ugly and brutal, and it's all because of my father. The man who stole me from my mother’s arms as a newborn and shipped me off to Russia to be raised by his sister, Masha, while he stayed in the US.
By the time I turned twenty-one, Oleg had completely unraveled. His drug and alcohol abuse escalated, he ventured into human trafficking and started cutting the street drugs he sold with fentanyl. His senior lieutenants were fed up. They came to Russia and secretly met with me and Aunt Masha, urging me to dethrone my father and claim my place as the rightful heir.
Leading the Antonov Bratva was not the future I’d pictured, but I hated my father and what he was doing. Only, the attack that we planned went south when someone tipped him off. In the end, my father survived, but most of his senior lieutenants were killed. After that, Oleg became hell-bent on revenge. He had my aunt murdered, and would have done the same to me if he could.
But he wasn't about to. I got to him first.
Liza’s eyes widen and her mouth falls open as she prepares to scold her father, but I stop her with a hand on her shoulder.
“It's okay," I assure her. “It’s been said before.”
Boris starts to laugh like I told him the funniest joke in the world, and Liza and I exchange looks.
“Why are you here?!” he asks, wiping a tear from his eye. “Out to get revenge on the host?”
“Why would you say something so ridiculous? She’s a guest here, like us.” Liza flashes me an apologetic look, but there’s something about Boris’s tone that sets my teeth on edge.
“What do you mean, get my revenge?” I ask cautiously.
Leaning in closer, his voice drops to a conspiratorial whisper. “You know, considering the rumors about how Maxim helped kill Masha Antonov.”
“Ex-excuse me?” My breath catches in my throat, and everything around me spins as his words hit me like a freight train.
“You don’t know what you’re saying!” Liza’s voice quivers with rage. “You’re drunk!”
“I am, but I still know what I’m talking about.”
My blood freezes in my veins. I’d love to dismiss Boris’s revelations as drunken ramblings, but I've long known that while my father ordered the hit on my aunt, someone else lured her out of hiding. “Why would Maxim Belov help my father kill Masha?”
“Why? Who knows.” He shrugs, his words slurred and his eyes glassy. “Maxim Belov does whatever he wants. No one would dare challenge him.”
Liza shakes her head in disgust before her worried eyes meet mine. “Please tell me you don’t believe a word. He can barely stand.”
“Why would he make up something like that?” I stumble back, trying to get control over my racing thoughts. “Last summer, when I was back in Russia cleaning out my aunt’s secret cabin—the place she’d been hiding out in—I found the diary she’d kept in the days before she was murdered. In the entries leading up to her death, she mentioned someone she knew and trusted who had vowed to protect her. Although she didn't disclose their identity, she planned to meet them in Moscow. But whoever this person was did the exact opposite. They led her like a lamb to the slaughter.”
Liza frowns. “It’s still a jump to think Maxim had anything to do with it.”
