Page 65 of Becoming Indigo

“Okay,” I snapped, irritated. I pinched the bridge of my nose, a tension headache settling in.

“With one exception,” Clover murmured. My fingers fell away from my face, and I slowly rose to my full height. The same feeling had given me goose bumps at Clover’s words before slithering over me.

“What exception?” I asked, my voice deceptively calm.

“It would seem that in the last two decades, the Petrov bratva has—inconspicuously, mind you—singled themselves out within the Russian human trafficking network.”

My jaw ticked as I clenched my molars together and resisted the urge to grind my teeth in frustration. “How so?” I swear to God, if she told me they were somehow worse than the scum of the earth and had found a way to make the flesh trade even more monstrous than it already was, I’d lose my goddamned mind.

“They—” Clover was cut off by the hideous blaring of a truly obnoxious siren.

“Oh shit—” she muttered, the clicking of keys muted by the noise of the alarm.

“Clover, what the fuck is going on?” I yelled into my phone helplessly.

“I set up a perimeter alarm on your compound when you told me you’d be running the Alvarez job. It’s standard procedure to up security features on our system for compounds when there’s a sensitive job. My system immediately tried to patch into your network to check the cameras and see what set off the alarm.” Clover swallowed audibly. “The power at the compound has been cut, but whoever tampered with the system didn’t know I’d installed a failsafe in the security network. The cameras are still active. Priest…someone’s there.”

Riordan

My father’s face, adorned with a halo of cigar smoke, filled the screen of my phone.

“When I sent you to Nevada, it was with the understanding that you would be making my life easier, Riordan Mikhailovich. This is not fuckin’ that!”

“Otets—”

“Don’t youotetsme! Your mother has had one phone call since you moved! One! Do you know how many times I’ve been bitched at because you can’t take five minutes out of your goddamn schedule to make a fucking phone call?” My father,pakhanof the Petrov bratva,made an annoyed sound in the back of his throat. In any context but this one, that sound would indicate an imminent display of gratuitous violence. In this instance, it spoke to his desperation to stay on the good side of his wife—my mother.

“I’m sorry,otets…I’ve been really busy getting The Goldfinch in hand and settling into the Nevada scene. I promise, I’ll call more often, and I’ll make it up to Mom.”

My dad huffed. “You better make this shit up to me. I had to take your mother salsa dancing to get her mind off the fact that her only son ghosted her.Salsa dancing, Ri. You. Owe. Me.”The love-drunk look in his eyes completely belied my father’s indignant tone. Mikhail and Cara Petrov might be opposites, but they’d been madly in love for well over twenty-five years.

A text notification from Ivan, my best friend and second-in-command, scrolled across my screen, but I swiped it away. My mother walked upbehind my father, arms wrapping around his shoulders as she tipped his phone so the camera settled on her.

“Oh, Mikhail! Alert the press! Riordan Petrov is, in fact, among the living. How’s Nevada treating ya, boyo?” My mother tucked her sandy-brown hair behind her ear with one hand and shot me an indignant look.

“Mom—”

“No! The only excuse for neglecting to call is if you’re dead. Did you die?”

Another text notification from Ivan flashed across my screen, and I swiped it away in annoyance.

“Mom, I swear I’m not dead. I’m sorry I haven’t called. I’ve just been so busy…”

I didn’t want to tell her what I’d been busy with. I was an excellent liar. Calculation flowed in my blood just as strongly as my love of good vodka and beautiful women. However, I never quite mastered the art of lying to my mother. I learned long ago to only answer her exact question and not volunteer any additional information. Ever. The woman was like a bloodhound.

A call from Ivan scrolled across my screen, and I declined it with a frown. Something must be happening for him to message and then call me in such rapid succession.

“Hey, Mom, I’m getting a call I need to take. I promise I’ll call on Sunday and arrange a visit soon, but I have to get this. I love you.”

My mother sighed, leaning farther into my father. She kissed his cheek and leaned back, wiping her lipstick print off his cheek with her thumb while he grinned up at her. For a moment, their eyes locked, and the look of pure adoration that passed between them was so intense I had to avert my eyes. I could only hope that one day I could share a look even half that profound with another human being.

“Stay safe, Son,” my father said before ending the call. I heaved a sigh before I found Ivan’s messages. Two texts to call him ASAP paired with the call I’d declined caused a sinking feeling to settle in my gut. I hit Ivan’s contact info and dialed his number. I held my breath as the phone rang, only releasing it when I could hear his voice on the other line.

“Ri, it’s him. He made contact again—”

“You don’t mean…”

“Yeah, Nicodemus. He sent me a message through theAstraeaplatform.”Astraeawas a platform on the dark web, one we utilized for a singular purpose, and if our mysterious contact there had sent us an SOS, shit had seriously hit the fan.

I swallowed.Fuck. “And?” I found myself crossing my fingers like a child.

“He said there’s been chatter. Someone found her…”

Someone found her. Fuck. I abruptly ended the call, scrolling through my contacts until I found Indigo’s name in my phone. My finger tapped the screen, and I listened while the phone rang and rang andrang.Come on,lisichka.Answer. I called three times, each call ringing through until her voicemail picked up. I called Ivan back, and the connection clicked instantly, like he had been staring at his phone, waiting for the call.

“Get a security detail together, Ivan,” I demanded gruffly. “I’m heading to the Crows’ compound now. We have to warn them.”

I could only pray for Los Cuervos’ sake that I got there before his men did. The Beast of Boston had found her. Dread crept into my heart. The inability to stop once the hunt was on was fundamentally coded into my DNA, and it was this trait that linked me to a man I wholly loathed—my uncle Roark Callahan. If he had Indigo in his sights, he wouldn’t stop until he had captured or killed her. I strode out of my private entrance to The Goldfinch and slid into the back of my armored Mercedes Maybach S580.

Ivan had briefed our security team of the situation as I’d exited the casino, and three armored Cadillac Escalades filled with our soldiers fell into V-formation behind my car as Ivan sped us out of Reno and toward Sagebrush, Nevada. I wasn’t a religious man per se, but for the second time tonight, I found myself pleading with a God I wasn’t sure existed. I had barely scratched the surface of who my cousin was. I hadn’t even had the opportunity to tell the rest of our family that she existed. I needed her to be okay because if she wasn’t, and my mother found out… well, there’d be hell to pay.