Page 82 of Bound By Debt

I would stay longer, but a text from Dmitri has me ready to climb the walls by the time I find him.

Your office.

“What?”

Dmitri is waiting for me in my office with several other men, and the looks on their faces send a shiver of dread down my spine.

My second-in-command takes in my still-wet hair, the joggers, and T-shirt, and his mouth settles into a hard line. I’ve rarely seen such anger in his eyes, the cords in his neck standing out as if everything in him is clenched, taut as steel. The other men exchange glances.

“Are you going to tell me, or will I have to guess with a game of Charades?” I want to get back to Eva, and it makes me short-tempered.

“Pakhan,” one of them begins, then hesitates.

“Spit it out,” I snap.

“Evgeny. It’s…” Dmitri takes a deep breath. “It’s Vasya.”

A warning bell goes off in my head, instantly drowning the annoyance. “What about Vasya? Is he dead?”

Had Tsepov gotten to him? I would rip that bastard’s throat and heart out with my own hands if he?—

“No, Evgeny.” Dmitri comes closer, puts his hand on my shoulder, and looks me in the eye. “It’s Vasya, brother. One of the cops we’re paying traced the sale of the burner phone that kept calling Jordan, the one that texted him to meet at the warehouse, and from there found video footage of Vasya buying a phone around the same time.”

I suck in a breath, my mind unable, unwilling, to grasp the implications. “It’s a coincidence.”

Dmitri shakes his head once, the look in his eyes regretful but hard. “No, brother. It’s not. The bullets they pulled from Jordan’s body match his Glock 48. The cop also pulled footage from Eva’s accident, and one of our guys found several videos online. The car that hit Eva’s? It was Vasya’s. He never tried to brake.”

The world freezes, grows cold and narrow and gray.

“No.” It wasn’t Vasya. I’m sure of it. There is no way the man who is as close to me as a brother would try to harm Eva and go so far as to kill her brother.

MyEva.

“Boss, I’m sorry.”

One of the men steps forward, holds out a tablet with information from the police officer on our payroll, and shows me the videos of Vasya buying the phone, the text messages he sent from it. The videos and still images show a black Range Rover t-boning Eva’s car, sending it spinning across the intersection in images that make me nearly blind with rage.

And there, in an image from the camera at the intersection, moments before the Rover struck Eva’s car, is Vasya through hisfront windshield, his face a terrifying mask, his eyes on only one target.

The world shifts under me, cracks beneath my feet, and sends me tumbling into an abyss.

“Find him.” The words are a snarl in the back of my throat. “Find him and bring him to me. Don’t kill him.Iwill deal with him.”

“Yes, boss.”

The men file out quickly. Dmitri gives me one look, his jaw tightening, and leaves, pulling the door closed behind him.

My harsh breath is the only sound in the room, my shoulders heaving, my entire body clenched as tightly as my fists.

One of your men betrayed you.

I would watch your back because you never know who’s coming for it.

My roar of rage echoes through the room.

32

EVA