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I stand up impatiently and move to the wide glass doors, staring out over the lush valley to the distant deep-blue bay.

I meant what I said to Abby about Roman no longer being a factor in our decisions. And I definitely meant it when I told her that she is the family I choose, and always will. These past months without her have taught me that, and it’s not a lesson I ever plan to have to learn twice.

But even if I know the relationship between Roman and me needed a reset, the truth is that I miss him like a fucking limb, whether I want to admit it or not.

Especially when I’m preparing to go to war.

Not because I want his resources, though right now, I’mnot going to pretend that I couldn’t do with an entire brigade of hardened Stevanovsky crew, all of whom I chose and trained myself over the years I worked with Roman.

I miss my brother.

Because that is what Roman is and always has been. I can work with men like Luke and Paddy, or my old crew back in Malaga, and consider them brothers-in-arms, compatriots. Friends, even, especially in Luke’s case.

But none of them curled up beside me beneath an overpass in Miami as the tropical rain poured down around us, rotting the cardboard we slept on and turning the few clothes we had to moldy rags. None of them lived on whatever we could steal or wash dishes to earn. None of them put up with being insulted by the rich tourists we served coffee to.

None of them stood beside me and faced down men with guns who wanted to take us both and do whatever wealthy men do with young homeless boys who have nowhere to go.

Roman and I fought our way out of those streets together. We stitched each other’s knife wounds and laughed off the bruises and occasional broken bone that were an inevitable part of living under the radar. We accepted one another’s secrets and learned instinctively what caused the other fear.

It might have been only last year that Roman’s past finally came tumbling out in detail, but long before the Orlov bratva kidnapped his daughters, I knew that even a glimpse of their red sparrow tattoo would send Roman to the boxing ring and the vodka bottle. When we were children, that tattoo would mean immediate flight, no matter what job we might have or the meager belongings we would have to leave behind. Even years later, I knew that simply seeing a common sparrow on a branch outside a window would make Roman’s face darken, his whole body tense.

Just like Roman knows I have a pathological hatred of milk. I never actually told him that just the smell of it willremind me forever of the night my mother drugged me outside that Miami orphanage. I didn’t have to. He simply knew not to leave it in the refrigerator of the many places we shared over the years, just like he always makes sure to order his coffee black, so milk won’t be served at our table.

We understood one another in a thousand unspoken ways. When Roman became the legal guardian for Mikhail Stevanovsky’s three children, we both took the responsibility on. For a long time, until Darya came along, Roman held the children at a distance. Everyone else thought he was cold and cruel; I knew he was fucking terrified. So I stepped in where he couldn’t, picking up little Masha when she cried, keeping an eye on Ofelia when she withdrew, or listening to Mickey explain his computer stuff even though I didn’t understand a fucking word.

That’s the way Roman and I have always operated. Silently stepping up to the plate without conscious thought, instinctively providing what the other needs.

And that’s what I fucking miss.

The banter. The silent understanding. The one person I know, without thought or question, has my back to the death.

It’s different with Abby. I would die for her; I certainly plan to kill the fuckers that have made her life a living hell, who nearly succeeded in taking her from me forever. Abby owns my heart, forever and completely. If I’ve learned anything over the past months, it’s that no amount of time, distance, or even heartbreak can change that. I fell in love with her the first day she insulted me over that café counter, even if it took our separation for me to understand just how much. I need her like I do air or water.

But just like I didn’t truly understand my feelings for Abby until I thought I’d never see her again, it’s taken cutting Roman off for me to truly understand what our friendship means to me.

If Abby is the air I breathe, the stuff of survival, then Roman is my soul food. He and I are the place we’ve both always come home to, metaphorically, at least. The family we both chose. We raised each other and never questioned the solidity of that relationship. It justwas.

Until it wasn’t.

It’s one of the reasons we never discussed money in any formal way; for the first part of our lives, what one had, the other shared. But Roman becoming pakhan definitely changed the power balance between us. I just didn’t see the cracks until Abby pointed them out. After she left, those cracks became fault lines I couldn’t ignore.

I stifle a yawn as I rub a hand over my face. I’ve been up for twenty-four hours, and I’m running on fumes. Which is probably why I feel a certain suffocating defeat as I stare around the luxurious bedroom.

The villa is a series of gable-roofed bungalows set around a central outdoor area. Our double doors open onto the tiles and gardens surrounding an infinity pool that looks out to the distant bay. The bedroom itself has a high wooden ceiling and heavy carved wooden furnishings that are clearly Thai antiques. Everything, from the indoor-outdoor shower to the crisp linen on the bed, is the kind of high-end sophistication only serious money can buy.

I wasn’t lying when I told Abby I have enough money to keep us both in what most people might consider good style. I’ve reinvested every cent I’ve ever been paid back into Mercura, and the returns on Roman’s platform get better every quarter.

I’ve also never worried about my ability to make more. But if I want to turn my modest fortune into the kind of money that keeps places like this running, I’m going to need to create an empire of my own. And despite my love of the fight, the idea of going back to the streets to win territory of my own,being back in the blood and dirt it takes to build a clan from the ground up, doesn’t appeal in the slightest.

And what else are you going to do, Dimitry?

The bratva is all I’ve ever known. The streets are where I came from. I’ve been carrying a gun longer than I’ve had a bank account, and I learned to punch long before I sat on a bicycle.

I don’t know how to do life without crime.

Roman and I fought side by side to elevate the Stevanovsky clan from the streets to the hidden world of cyber money laundering. I’ve become accustomed to the idea that I can live this life without having to bleed every day for it.

But now I’ll be doing it all again. And this time, I’ll have Abby to look after while I do. The blood and fire of the coming battle is only the beginning, and for once, I don’t relish the prospect of what’s going to follow, any more than I do telling Abby that this is the path I have to take.