Page 159

Everest huffs a humorless laugh. “He didn’t have to tell me. You just did. It was a guess after the engagement party, but you confirmed it. Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For making it so much easier to kill you. I’d almost started to feel bad about wanting you both dead. Not anymore.”

Ada’s lips twitch, then a small smile pulls up the corners of her lips. When she begins to titter the most annoying and downright evil sound, I’m momentarily preoccupied with the bone deep desire, nah, the raw need to see this bitch’s head laying on the floor beside her dead body.

“Oh, sweetheart,” Ada says in a saccharine sweet voice. “Two of your boyfriends are dead. Kato’s next. Then you.”

Something is…off. Since when does a woman speak on behalf of a member of the Bratva? Yeah, Everest addressed her, but Ada sure as fuck is acting as though she has more power than any wife in any Family should have.

“So what are you waiting for?” Everest asks.

If – No. Fuck that –whenwe get out of here in one piece, I’m putting my wife over my lap and spanking her ass pink for that shit. Why the fuck would she taunt the people literally holding a gun to our heads?

When Dima flits his eyes to his wife before returning his attention to me, things begin to click into place.

“You’ve been running the show,” I say to Ada rather than ask.

The smirk she sends me is all the answer I need.

“Damn, Dima. No wonder you’ve never been brought up through the ranks – your wife has kept your balls in her purse all these years. Wait…is that why Everest is an only child? Because she castrated you twenty-four years ago?”

“Fuck you, boy,” Dima says.

I guess he thinks calling me boy will rile me up. Instead, I find myself rather entertained by the red creeping up his neck and settling in his cheeks, the vein bulging in his forehead.

And the smug look on Mikhail’s face.

“Hey, if I’m wrong, maybe you should put your wife in her place. Wouldn’t want your men to see how fucking weak you are.”

It’s a stretch, but it’s worth a shot. Another attempted tactic to buy us some time. If they’re fighting among themselves, their focus will be off us for a few moments. That might be just enough time.

Blood is still seeping from the wound. It’s not life threatening, but if I don’t get the bullet out and get the wound sealed up, there’s still a chance I could bleed out soon, and I refuse to leave my wife without knowing she’s safe.

Dima’s nostrils flare as he barely shoots his wife a look from the corner of his eye.

“Go ahead. We’ll wait,” Everest says. And fuck, if we were alone, I would kiss the shit out of her.

She was right when she’d told us she was no longer the sweet girl we’d known as teens. This woman…she’s a badass.

I suppose she would have to be to not only be in a committed relationship with three men, but three criminals. She’s married to the Don of the Greek mafia and sharing her heart, mind, and body with all three of us and makes it seem as though it’s the most natural thing in the world.

Hell, to us,it is.

Everest’s smirk fades a touch as her attention focuses on her mother. “Will you at least give me the courtesy of telling me why the fuck you hate me? I’m your only daughter. Your only child, and it’s not like I was a difficult kid to raise considering you had nothing to do with it.”

I wasn’t there when she was growing up, not behind closed doors. But I saw how indifferent and cold her mother was to her at the gatherings when our parents would rub elbows and whisper business deals.

But most the parents behaved as though their kids weren’t in attendance since they were either drunk or busy with business. When we were young, the nannies were in charge of keeping us in line.

As we got older, we were left to our own devices and had to entertain ourselves while still behaving.

Bet her parents are regretting that decision right about now. I know my father did the night I told him the four of us were leaving the Family and having a baby together.

“Do I need a reason? I never wanted a kid. I never wanted to be a mother. Hell, I never wanted to be a wife,” Ada sneers, shooting her husband a side eye.

“Shut the fuck up,” Dima mutters to her under his breath. Don’t know who he wants that last tidbit hidden from, but everyone in the room heard him just fine.