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Music pulses through the air and Renat’s penthouse is packed with our family and a lot of his friends.

He knows some crazy characters. That’s for sure.

His penthouse is crowded. Some of his cage fighting friends are getting drunk and rowdy.

And there are about twenty girls that look like they were hired by a modeling agency to walk around teasing the guys. Ruvim, Roman and Radmir, my single brothers, are having a great time chatting up the girls and getting them tipsy. I should be too, but I can’t focus on anything other than my sister and that asshole she’s standing with.

“I just don’t like him,” I growl, lifting the drink to my lips and glaring across the penthouse towards Avraam Abaza.

Renat invited everyone to his party and, of course, that meant my sister, Ruslana, brought her new husband along to join her.

I’ve had my eye on them all night and I swear I’m not imagining things. She doesn’t want to be with him. There’s something going on there that we don’t know about.

“You better learn to like him seeing as he’s married to our sister,” Renat says, topping up my whisky and then grabbing two fresh glasses.

“But have you watched them together? I mean really paid attention to it. She isn’t happy.”

Renat shrugs and shakes his head. “You’re overthinking it, man. If she wasn’t happy, she’d tell us. She looks perfectly fine to me.”

He picks up the drinks he poured for himself and Rodion and tilts his head towards me. “Try to loosen up. You look tense. Enjoy the party and stop worrying about things. Have you looked around and seen the girls?” He grins and gestures towards the two girls dancing close by.

They’re hot, but I can get hot girls any time I want. I don’t give a shit about that.

What I care about is whether my family is safe and right now, I don’t believe my sister is safe. Not with that guy.

I pull my mouth to the side and clench my jaw tightly.

I can’t loosen up. Not if my sister needs me. I don’t know how Renat can’t see it.

I turn the crystal whisky glass in my fingers, feeling the intricate designs along the outer walls.

Renat is wrong.

Rodion said something similar, though. He also told me to leave it alone because Ruslana looked happy.

My brothers are blind.

She’s not happy. She’s just doing a really fucking good job of acting happy. Ruslana is the wild, flirty, and rebellious fun one. She doesn’t want to be tied down in some bland marriage to some no-name asshole who showed up out of nowhere.

Whatever he is holding over her head—I’ll find a way to free her from it. She doesn’t have to stay married to that asshole for the rest of her life. I can see her silent plea for help, and I’ll find a way. No matter what it takes.

Across the room, Avraam takes Ruslana’s hand and leads her to the dance floor. She’s smiling when she steps into his arms and they start moving together. His hand drifts down her back and I want to punch him in the jaw for touching her.

I know my sister better than anyone.

Something isn’t right.

He’s holding my sister hostage in this marriage so that he can worm his way into the alliance we have with the Dubrov brothers. An alliance that is still new and too delicate to be messed with.

I’m struggling to keep my cool with them so close together like that. Avraam leans over Ruslana and whispers something to her and she giggles and blushes. Was it a threat? A warning to keep up the charade? Ruslana doesn’t blush. And she doesn’t giggle when a guy talks to her. She’s the one who has guys begging to be with her while she brushes them off—too cool to commit to some mediocre idiot.

So why this one?

Why did she commit to this one?

I don’t get it.

My blood is pulsing heavily in my ears and my muscles ache with tension.

Frustration grips me and my fingers tighten around the whisky glass a little too intensely.

It shatters in my hand, sending golden liquid splashing down to the floor, glittering, with shards of broken glass flaked between it. “For fuck’s sake,” I growl angrily, looking down at my hand, expecting to be cut. But luckily I’m not.

A waiter dressed in a black and white penguin style uniform comes rushing over to me, apologizing for the mess that I made and quickly moving to clean it up. I roll my eyes. This party is a fucking joke. I need to get out of here.

I sigh and walk away from the bar area, intending to find my brothers to say goodbye to them, but changing my mind and heading straight towards the door instead.

Unfortunately, I bump into the only person, of all the people here, that I would least want to interact with.

“Shit. Sorry.” Avraam smiles, reaching up and touching my shoulder as though we are friends. “You in a rush? You came flying out of nowhere,” he chuckles.

“Move, Avraam,” I snap and his face changes from friendly to confused.

Ruslana arrives next to him with a grin on her face, unaware of the tense moment happening between her husband and me.

“Rigor, have you seen Roda? I wanted to ask him about the—what’s wrong? You look really pissed off,” she changes direction mid-sentence.

“Nothing, just telling your husband to get his hands off me.”

“Rigor!” she says in horror, glancing between Avraam and me. Of course, she would want me to play along with this stupid fake game of charades—and perhaps I should, for the sake of her safety. But I can’t bring myself to be nice to this fucking asshole.

“What’s he holding over you, Ruslana? Blackmail? Some secret you want to keep hidden that he’s threatening to tell the world?” I snarl at her, not meaning to be angry with her, but I’m just angry at everything right now.

“Don’t you dare speak to my wife like that. You might not have the decency to respect your own sister, but I will make sure you respect my wife ,” Avraam snarls, pushing his shoulders back and taking a step towards me.

“Stop this,” Ruslana says with desperation in her voice as she grabs Avraam’s arm.

“Stay out of this, Ruslana,” he says darkly.

His tone and the way he pushes her hand away—I see straight through him.

Pointing my finger right at his face, I whisper, “I’m coming for you, Avraam Abaza. I’m coming for you and I will free my sister from whatever bullshit you are using to keep her locked at your side.”

“Rigor, please don’t do this,” Ruslana begs, tears forming in her eyes.

“It’s ok, Ruslana. I won’t abandon you to this asshole. I promise you.”

“Rigor!” she shouts, pleading with her eyes for me to stop. I can’t put her in danger like this. I shouldn’t have said anything. There is no telling what he will do to her when they get home later and no one else is around.

“I’m sorry,” I mutter to Ruslana. “I’ve just been—drinking. Yeah. I had too much to drink. Ignore me. I don’t even know what I’m talking about.” I say it for Avraam’s sake. But I hope my sister sees the truth in my gaze. I will help you escape. I will find a way to bring you home.

Ruslana’s lips are tightly pressed together as she glares at me.

I look at her for a second longer, then turn towards the door and make my way out of the party.

Behind my back I hear Avraam say, “What in the world was that about?” but I ignore him. I can’t go back there and slam my fist into his face like I really want to. Now isn’t the time.

Not to say it isn’t going to happen though, because it fucking will happen.

In the hallway outside the party, I can still hear the heavy bass pulsing through the walls while I wait for the elevator.

I sigh and press my fingers into my eyes to massage the headache forming just behind them.

I need leverage.

I’m going to have to do some research into Avraam Abaza and find out what he cares about. Something I can take from him and use as a negotiation tool to get my sister back.

Whatever it is, it’s going to have to be special to him.

The elevator chimes and the doors slide open.

I step inside and one of the drunk model-girls stumbles in after me.

She grins at me as she tries to lean against the stainless steel elevator wall to keep her balance while still looking cute.

But she doesn’t look cute. She looks drunk.

“Hey sexy,” she giggles. “Why are you leaving so early?”

I look her up and down. If I had met her on a different night, perhaps a little fun would have been a convenient way to ease my tension, but tonight she’s sloppy and I don’t like it.

“I’ve got better things to do.”

“How about I do them with you?” She steps close to me, swaying as she runs her hand down my chest.

I grab her wrist and glare down at her.

“I suggest you go home and get some sleep,” I snarl.

She pulls her lips up in distaste. Not used to being turned down, I’m sure.

“Whatever, loser .” She takes a step back and leans against the wall again, refusing to look in my direction.

When the elevator opens, she pushes past me, almost tripping over her own feet, and then clutches onto a nearby potted plant in the foyer to try to maintain her cool.

I shake my head and step around her, heading for the doors that lead onto the street outside.

My car isn’t parked too far away.

The only thing on my mind is to get home and start looking into Avraam. I’ll search his past. I’ll tear his entire history apart if I have to, so that I can find something to take away from him.

He should never have put my sister in that position. He messed with the wrong family.

He thinks he got away with it—fooling us all and convincing Ruslana to fool us, too. But I am no fool.

At home at my mansion near the edge of Boston city, a prime location for the fast-paced life I prefer, I toss my phone on to the open-plan kitchen counter and head towards the bar to pour myself a whisky before I get stuck in my research.

Rolling my sleeves up over my forearms, I crack my knuckles before I sit down in front of my laptop and start deep diving into who Avraam Abaza really is.

Within an hour, I have caught onto something very interesting.

At first, I’m not sure, because across the internet, the girl I’m looking at doesn’t have any social pages with her surname showing, but there are enough clues to make me believe she is related to Avraam.

But how?

I divert my search off him and onto her.

And soon discover what might be the best news I could possibly have found.

Avraam Abaza has a sister.

Alyona Abaza. A twenty-six-year-old paralegal working in Boston city at a well-known law firm.

“You kept her a secret all this time,” I mutter to myself. Why would he marry my sister and not introduce his own family to us? It’s glaringly suspicious. It’s like he knows he has to keep her safe from us because of what he’s doing to Ruslana.

I smirk as I lean back in my chair and fold my arms behind my head, staring at a black-and-white picture of Alyona from the company website.

She’s pretty.

Her face has an innocent glow, soft eyes with long dark lashes.

I close that page and open her social media page again and flick through other photos of her. Her long, dark brown hair is rich like chocolate and her brown eyes have a dreamy look about them.

She’s smiling, laughing, vibrant and happy. Social media only shows you what they want you to see, though. I know better than to make assumptions about who she is based on a public profile.

I bet she uses her looks to manipulate people, just like her brother manipulates people.

She has a weapon of beauty.

What I have to do now is obvious.

I have to kidnap his sister and force her to marry me.

I’ll give him a taste of his own medicine and then, when I have his attention, I will use her against him.

A divorce in exchange for a divorce.

I will release his sister from our contract when he releases mine from his.

It’s the perfect plan. All I have to do is figure out when and where I can get to her.

Glancing at my watch, I see it’s past three in the morning.

Nothing is going to happen tonight. That’s for sure.

Tomorrow I’ll go down to her office and wait around for her to leave work. I need to find out where she lives, where she hangs out, and where she is most vulnerable.

I close my laptop, feeling a lot better about the situation. I have a solution now and a way to save my sister.

Ruslana, I told you I would help you.

I would do anything for my family.