Page 107 of Alexei

The Ashford brothers weren't who I expected to find here.

“What the fuck is going on here?” Byron bellowed, his eyes roaming over the dead bodies in the room, then over Vasili, Sasha, and me and ending on his sister. When he saw her face, tears streaming down her face and the state of her wardrobe, he pointed the gun at my brothers and his brothers followed suit.

“Who hurt my sister?” he growled, pissed off. “Who?”

“You touch an Ashford, you die.” It had to be Royce who spoke those words. “Have you touched her, you filthy scum?”

“Let’s just kill them and ask questions later,” Winston added, his eyes hard.

“Yeah, you’d like to try,” Sasha sneered. Of course, it was always Sasha. “You’ll be dead before you-”

A bullet flew through the air and Sasha dodged it at the last second. The Ashford brothers weren’t fucking around.

“You fucking moron,” Sasha growled as Vasili grabbed him by his neck and pushed him behind him.

“Stop Sasha,” Vasili and I warned.

“Byron, Winston, Royce. It wasn’t them!” Aurora jumped up, pleading in her voice. Her face was pale and her lower lip trembled. “P-please, listen.” Her words had my brothers eye her warily, but it got her brothers’ attention from us to their sister. “It wasn’t them,” she breathed weakly.

Her voice was weak, and it was gutting me on the inside to see her defeated like this. “It was him.”

She pointed the gun to Ivan’s dead body. Byron stiffened. “I know him.”

This had Aurora’s head whip to her brother. “How?”

“From a while back.” He furrowed his brows as if he was trying to locate the memory. “That’s right. It was some kind of piece of land or something he wanted. It was a long time ago. Father and he had a falling out because Father refused to sell it to him. Instead, he had it sold to Nico Morrelli.”

Aurora’s lips thinned. She threw the gun onto the ground and it slid to my feet. Our eyes locked and something flickered in her dark gaze.

“I see you and your brothers again, I’ll have you arrested.”

Sasha snickered and it made me want to smack him upside his head. But that would require some effort, and right now, I didn’t want to miss out on the last glimpse of the woman that stole my heart. Just fucking robbed it straight out of my chest, without even trying.

“Let’s get out of this clusterfuck,” Royce grumbled. “I fucking hate Russia. And Russians, but mostly Russia.”

“You’re just mad Byron wouldn’t let you bring along pussy on the plane,” Winston retorted dryly. “Your playboy ass needs rehab.”

Well, at least her brothers were no different from us.

“We’re taking you home, Rora.” Her brother wrapped his arm around her shoulders and steered her towards the door.

“We got you, Sis. And unlike the damn Russians, we have clean clothes so you can get rid of the shit you’re wearing.” God, they fucking sounded like Sasha.

Her brothers were right behind their two siblings. Glancing over his shoulder, Byron narrowed his eyes on us. “Don’t even think about pinning this mess on her.” He looked pissed off. “And stay the fuck away from my sister. You don’t want me as your enemy.”

Vasili didn’t even flinch, but he wanted to pounce on him. The only reason he didn’t was for me. We didn’t need the Ashfords on our bad side. They’d be worthy and unnecessary opponents. All three of them could cause problems we didn’t need.

“Our men will clean this up,” I told him coldly. “There will be nothing left to find here.”

Without another word, the two disappeared out of our sight, though it took only four heartbeats for Aurora’s heart wrenching, strangled sobs to echo through and travel down the hallway.

ChapterThirty-Five

AURORA

My knees pressed against my chest, I sat on my window seat and stared out, not seeing anything. It had been four weeks since we came back from Russia. Four whole goddamn weeks, and I had no idea how I functioned. But I did, though I felt like an empty shell.

Evidence of Ivan’s death was delivered to the FBI. The first days were crazy busy. An abundance of evidence of the kidnappings over the last thirty years. Locations of boys that survived and that didn’t. Kingston's name wasn’t on either list. Days and nights of combing through all the paperwork. Sofia Catalano’s name was part of that paperwork, although nobody seemed concerned with the woman. I was.