Page 99 of An Heir to Blood and Power

Posturing.

Volkov wanted to spit on floor at this disgusting display of cowardice.

He needed bold men,ambitiousmen, notthis,whateverthiswas. “Disgusting, Pavel.”

The man on the other end of the line growled back at him in Russian, frantically explaining himself.

“I do not want excuses. I want Romanov to be fucking terrified like Vladimir Putin terrifies people. Is Nicolai Romanov fucking terrified?”

The lilting excuses coming out of the phone made Volkov want to reach through the cell signal and electrocute the testicles of this pathetic excuse for a man.

“Did you give message to Romanov or not?”

The man gibbered, admitting that they hadn’t talked to Nicolai Romanov himself because he’d never shown. They’d just yelled at his Swedish and Indian and German mercenaries to bring him, but they had not.

All those foreign operators because Nicolai Romanov might be the heir of the last tsar of Russia, but he had no country, no territory he ruled over.

He had no army, no real power.

His blood was his only weapon, and the power to bleed is not a threat to a man like Demyan Volkov.

“This is not good operation, Pavel. We will try another operation to contact Nicolai Romanov and explain his choices, and if that does not work, then we move to stronger measures.”

“What measures can you take? He is already married, inCoptic Orthodox crowning,to this American woman. There is nothing to do,” Pavel wheedled. “He is married for his life because history and religionishis power. Without Church, he is nothing but old story to scare the children.”

“There are always other roads to take, Pavel,” Demyansaid, using this as a moment to impart knowledge in how the world really worked to one of his captains. How Pavel received such teaching would determine whether he rose in the organization someday or fell, and fell terribly. “If circumstances are such that Tsesarevich Nicolai will not marry my Alina, then we change circumstances, or we change tsesarevich.”

“You can’t mean?—”

“I mean we do not limit ourselves to petty bourgeois options. We rule ruthlessly because that is what it takes to rule Russia and the world. It has always been so, but nowweare the tsars.”

CHAPTER 29

the next morning

LEXI

The bedroom in the Billionaire Sanctuary hotel room drifted in and out focus as my eyelids dropped darkness over the blazing white paint and swaths of royal blue carpet.

I squinted, trying to wake up.

The open bathroom door resolved into lines and then a dark gap in the sunlit wall.

The bedsheets brushed softly against my legs and arms as I struggled in the tangles. The chandelier’s unlit candelabra bulbs and limp crystals wandered across the ceiling as I rolled over.

Nicolai was lying on his back, his head elevated on the pillow, staring at the blank expanse of ceiling above the bed.

“Hey,” I said, still sleepy, my whole body languid and flowing over the sheets like molasses.

His masculine voice was lower, rough with sleep but as flat a dial tone. “I’m divorcing you. Get out.”

Sharp shock scraped the fuzz of sleep off my skin.“What?”

“We’re done,” he said. “Pack and get out.”

“What happened?”

“Nothing.”