Page 2 of Cruel Russian King

And then that bastard didn’t show for the wedding.

He left me hanging, making me look like an idiot. Him backing out of our deal cost me partners and power. The very damn thing that made Bratva what it is today.

And what made it worse?

Katya looked exactly like Vera, like it was all one big fucking joke at my expense.

The resemblance between Vera and Katya was fucking uncanny.

And through Lev, I found out why. Katya was my half-sister, my father’s bastard.

As head of the Rykovs, that meant I was obligated to protect her. No matter how little I gave a damn about her.

Then Lev had the audacity to reach out, saying he wanted to annul his marriage to Katya…and marry Vera instead. I agreed, giving him the opportunity to fix his mistake.

But what does that spineless bastard do?

He knocked Katya up.

From that moment, I declared them enemies. No second chances…no peace talks…just fucking war.

It was a statement, that I wasn’t someone you crossed, and I sure as hell wasn’t someone you played.

But of course, shit got a fucking thousand times worse!

Jaroslav and Vera decided their brilliant solution was to get married, thinking that would end the bloodshed.

As far as I was concerned, Vera was a traitor. Whatever happened to her in the Safin faction was her damn fault.

Then she dropped the next bomb, she was pregnant for Jaroslav.

That’s when I realized something: raining fire and brimstone on the Safins wasn’t getting me the revenge I wanted.

Especially not when my own fucking younger brothers, Yegor and Zahkar, had aided the enemy. They helped those Safin bastards more than once just to protect their precious sisters, defying me in broad daylight. It had cost them. I had them tied at a damn tree and whipped their asses like they fucking stole something.

Knocked out, but not defeated, I did what needed to be done.

We came to a settlement, and I signed a peace treaty.

Was it what I wanted? Hell no.

But did it get me closer to them? Let me inside their walls? Give me a way to dismantle their empire from within?

It did.

And best of all? I wouldn't break the treaty.

Which made my plan all the more perfect.

I made sure not to change overnight, that would've raised suspicion. Instead, I let them think I was softening, bit by bit. All the while, I was hunting for the perfect fucking way to exploit them. And it didn’t take long to find it.

Her name was Ninel Safin. At twenty-three, she was the youngest of the seven Safin siblings.

She looked like a porcelain doll with her pale skin, wavy black hair down to her waist, and those silver fucking eyes that could hold you in a trance if she wanted to.

I’d been tracking her for months. My intel team had her mapped: cameras, locations, habits. Since the Safin men took my sisters, Ninel was fair game.

And marrying her wouldn’t raise suspicion among the other faction leaders, not when those bastards already claimed two of my blood. To them, it would look like balance, a natural selection of sorts.