Page 59 of Reign of a Billionaire

His answer was flipping me the bird over his shoulder, but his chuckle didn’t escape me.

As I made my way into the bathroom to get ready, I stared at my reflection and couldn’t help but begrudgingly admit that it felt good to have a friend—however reluctant.

Chapter 30

Kingston

Perez Cortes was one paranoid motherfucker. Who the fuck voluntarily stayed in the fucking Amazon? Sick, sadistic human traffickers, that was who!

The black Land Rover traveled through the rough terrain of the Amazon jungle for hours before we disembarked and made our way on foot. Sweat collected on my brow as we trudged through the jungle. Alexei was on alert, wondering what my angle was.

“I need to find Perez’s compound,” I said as we climbed over a particularly dense pile of rotten shrubbery. Endless green stretched wide, but I could see signs of a coastline up ahead, as well as distant buildings and planes flying overhead.

“Why?”

The auction was happening in Porto Alegre, so logic predicted that Perez’s compound wasn’t too far. I needed to get to Liana before that auction. There was no fucking way I’d let anyone else touch her.

“He has Sofia Volkov’s daughter.”

Alexei never missed a step, traversing the forest floor with sure steps and using a machete to break down fallen trees inour path. The birds chirped in overtime, warning of a foreign presence.

“I see.” Typical of Alexei not to judge me, ignoring the fact that Sofia Volkov had wreaked havoc on so many families, including his own. “Have you asked Kian or Marchetti for the location?”

“Marchetti wants to get his hands on her daughter to draw Sofia out,” I answered reluctantly.

“I see.”

I suspected he did. I loved my brothers, but the fact of the matter was that I couldn’t let them get near the shit I was involved in. Alexei lived and breathed this kind of risk, and he hated Sofia’s husband, Ivan, as much as I did. There was nobody I trusted more than him.

The fact that he kept his word and didn’t tell a single soul—including his wife—of our plans or where we were told me he’d have my back through any storm we weathered. All these years, I still wasn’t sure why he thought he owed me.

“I never thanked you,” I said, the gratitude long overdue. “For saving me eight years ago.”

His pale blue eyes found mine, and he nodded. The shadowy expression that I used to see in the years following my rescue had changed since he married my sister.

“I fucked up your life,” he finally said. “It’s the least I could do.”

I looked at him, and the puzzle piece fell into place. He’d been blaming himself for my capture even though he was never the reason it happened in the first place. He was a victim of circumstance, being Ivan’s prisoner during his childhood. The day of my capture, it was Alexei who followed my sister back to our house and ensured she made it back safely, and for that, I considered us even.

My father, on the other hand, was a different story. His arrangements put a bullseye on his children’s backs.Hewas to blame.

“You didn’t deserve that fate, Alexei. None of us did.” I let my eyes roam the jungle’s planes. “Our parents are to blame. Not us.” I glanced his way. “We just have to do better with the next generation.”

“Yes, we do,” he muttered from my side. “Do you want to talk about her?”

Her. Liana. Louisa. The twins I failed. Did I want to talk about it? Where would I even fucking start? I swallowed the lump in my throat, keeping quiet. I felt detached from everything apart from this strange sensation when it came to the twin I wasn’t supposed to care for.

“No,” I finally answered, but Alexei must have read something in my expression because his lips lifted.

“You’re whipped.”

“Fuck off, asshole.”

Alexei looked out at the cloudy sky, staying silent for a beat. “Sofia’s daughter or not, if she’s the one, go for it.”

I shrugged. “It’s complicated.”

“What relationship isn’t?”