Page 122 of Cruel Romeo

Lev is already up, too. He bends over the shooter’s body, kicks the gun away, and nudges the man with his boot to make sure he’s not getting back up.

I’d say it’s unlikely. Hard to stand when half your skull is inside out.

Mikhael moves toward the front. He checks beyond the door and returns a moment later, face grim. “Boris’s men are down. Outside. Shot clean.”

I scan the room again. My gaze snags on a shape near the entrance.

Fuck.

Boris lies crumpled in a heap. Blood is pooling beneath his head and spreading fast across the tile.

The sight drags me forward. I kneel down beside the man who was almost my father-in-law, though the word means nothing now.

The back of his head is blown open. Execution-style. The poor bastard never had a chance.

“Nikolai Danilo’s man was waiting,” I say. “Took out Boris’s guards outside, dragged him in front as cover. Then put a bullet in the back of his head.”

Boris had been pathetic, but he was still apakhanin his own right. Not anymore, though. Now, he’s just a gaunt, dead-eyed carcass bleeding out on the floor of his own restaurant.

I look back down at Boris’s body. His hands are curled, nails broken, like he fought against being dragged in here. There are powder burns at the edge of the wound. Close range. Brutal, impersonal.

Perfectly in line with the Danilo M.O.

This was a calculated hit. Not chance, not fate. Someone knew we were meeting here tonight, and wanted to do away with all of us in one fell swoop.

I straighten up. “Lev,” I bark, “check the exits. All of them. Now.”

He moves immediately to obey. No questions, no hesitation.

I turn a slow circle and scan every shadow of the restaurant, every shattered glass and bullet hole. Unease crawls up my spine.

How the hell did thismudakknow we were meeting here tonight?

Did Boris set us up, trade his life for the hope of taking me down with him? Or was it someone closer?

My gaze lingers on Mikhael, who is still brushing drywall dust off his jacket with exaggerated care. But his smirk is gone, expression closed.

Could it be him? Does he resent me enough to stab me in the back? My own blood, my own cousin?

I don’t know. I can’t know. Everyone is a suspect and no one is. It’s the shittiest possible outcome, short of us each biting a bullet, and it makes my stomach knot.

Then I realize someone else knew.

Sima.

No. I shake my head almost imperceptibly. That’s paranoia talking.

And yet, the question lingers. This wasn’t random. Danilo’s man didn’t just stumble into the right place at the right time. Someone leaked this meeting. And I hate that I can’t be certain it wasn’t one of my own people.

Or my own fucking wife.

She already betrayed her family once, didn’t she? If she can do that, why shouldn’t she do it again?

Why shouldn’t she do it to you?

Lev comes back a moment later, breathing hard. “All clear,” he says. “No more shooters inside.”

Ivan pulls out his phone. He’s already scrolling through contacts. “I’ll call in my crew. Lock this place down tight before the cops sniff their way here.”