Page 2 of Ruinous Need

VIKTOR

“NO. NO.”

The man is a wreck as soon as I emerge from the shadows. It’s pathetic to see.

There’s a jolt of recognition as our eyes meet.

His hands claw at the stony floor of the cell as he scurries away until he hits the cold metal bars and curls against them. As if that will save him. He lets out a sob.

Coward. Though I’d expect nothing less.

Georgy Vontov is not the man he once was. The shaking, soft figure in a suit was once someone I looked up to. Even admired.

He sat at the old Pakhan’s right hand, part of the Council. The group that runs the Russian mafia in this city.

Powerful. Untouchable. One of the gods.

Then, when things changed, when I made sure there were consequences for the way they’d used people’s lives like pawns, he ran away. So many of them did, with their rotten empire stretching to every corner of the globe and safe houses dotted across it.

Tracking them down is like trying to exterminate rats.

We’ve been hunting Vontov for years alongside the others.

I’m an assassin with a specific task. Tracking down the slippery bastards who were on the old Pakhan’s council, so I can kill them one by one.

Fine, it’s a task I assigned myself. Vengeance for my best friend Lev.

Slowly, more slowly than my rage demands, we’ve been working our way through these stragglers. They’ll get what they deserve.

“Georgy,” I haul him up by the collar of his shirt. “Where are the rest of you hiding?”

“Please, please.” He’s shaking with fear. I release him, and he scrambles back to the corner.

“I’ll keep you alive as long as you take to tell us.”

At the first touch of the blade to his skin, he gives a piercing scream.

By the twentieth, he is silent, pale, slumped to the ground in a heap. The dark stone floor is wet with blood.

“Georgy,” I ask him again. “Are you sure there’s nothing you want to say?”

He shakes his head, his lips pressed together in a line.

I have to say I’m surprised. A coward like him — I thought he’d sing like a bird. Maybe the stragglers are more organized than we’d thought.

Someone like Georgy Vontov only stays quiet if he believes the reward is big enough to warrant it.

I put down the knife and settle back onto the chair, wiping the blood from my hands on a black cloth.

I watch him as I turn it over in my head. Where he’s likely to have come from. Where the rest of them are hiding. What they’re plotting, out there in the darkness. How I can get to them.

Whether any of it will ever be enough to satiate the never-ending need for revenge that feels like a red-hot coal lodged in my chest.

The sound of the bolt clicking startles me.

“Semyon,” I look up to see my cousin’s tall, thin frame in the doorway. He’s wearing a crisp grey suit, his blonde hair slicked back and his fingers gleaming with rings.

Since becoming the Pakhan, he likes to dress the part.

My cousin has never dirtied his hands with the sharp end of Bratva work. He’s the epitome of an heir who feels entitled to power but doesn’t want to work for it.

He regards the bloody knife in my hand with satisfaction. “Nice work with this one.”

Sometimes, when he uses this voice as if I’m a trained dog, a shudder rolls down my spine. I have to uncoil the rage in my stomach and remind myself that we’re on the same team. Even if he can be a slimy bastard.

“How’s the empire?”

Semyon gives a tight-lipped smile. “That’s not your business anymore. You don’t get to tell me what to do, Vitya.”

I don’t care about the empire, really, but I want to finish my job. And I have a deal with my cousin — if I continue working as a hitman for the Bratva, I get access to the files on the former Pakhan and his associates, so I can find where they’re hiding.

Of course, he could have just given me the damn information without shackling me to this rotten organization. But that’s not Semyon’s style. Everything has a price.

As if on cue, Vontov gives a whimper. I kick him in the guts. He falls back to the floor, passing out from shock or pain or both.

I narrow my eyes at my cousin. I’m fine being kept out of his dealings. I want no part in the Bratva’s management. Still, Semyon can be unpredictable.

“If you’re not here to update me on the family business, why are you here?”

“I have a special assignment for you.” He softens his tone.

The wheedling edge to his voice tells me I will not like what he has to say.

I grit my teeth. “What?”

“Lisette Du Pont.”

“Doesn’t ring a bell.”

“She’s family. Or she will be. Soon.” He grins at me, his face cracking open in a way that feels unnatural. Whoever she is, my cousin is very pleased. It doesn’t suit him. “You remember everything, Vitya. Has my unusual engagement slipped your mind?”

The memory surfaces gradually. Once, three years ago, Semyon did get engaged. Somehow.

There was a big party to celebrate. I showed up hoping to find a piece of information about a target hiding in Siberia. It didn’t go well.

I ended the night provoking Vadim, Semyon’s massive right-hand man, into a fight.We’d never fought and I felt that I needed to test it out. It was like trying to fight a brick wall.

The mysterious fiancée did not attend the party. I’m sure the gossip mill were thriving on the rumors about her whereabouts for weeks, but I wasn’t paying attention. I can’t recall the story behind the girl or why she didn’t show.

“You know, the Irish have been circling closer and closer lately and I’m worried she’s in danger.”

The Irish have been interfering with warehouses and shipments lately. As far as I was aware, they weren’t making any personal attacks against the Bratva. That would be suicidal on their part.

I raise an eyebrow in skepticism. “They were tailing her last week,” he insists. “I have it on good authority from one of their own.”

“I don’t see why this concerns me.”

He gestures at the knife. “You’re my best hitman. You’re the best protection for her while I’m away taking care of things in Chicago.”

“Are you serious?” I can’t keep my voice from curling into a snarl at the end.

Semyon sits back and folds his hands behind his head. I know he likes to provoke me, but I can’t help it.

This is not a real job. I may not be the Pakhan, but I’m not a fucking guard.

“What the fuck, Semyon? A babysitting assignment? Do you really think this is the best use of my skills?”

Chicago is a mess, from the intel I’ve gathered. It could take Semyon months of politicking to sort out the rebellions and problems over there. Unless he takes my advice and burns the city to the ground to smoke out the rats.

Semyon frowns for a second and tuts his tongue. “Remember who works for who, Vitya.” He uses my pet name to taunt me, I know it. It works.

“Oh, I’m well aware, Semya.”

“Good. Then you know you owe me a thousand favors, cousin. I help with your mission, don’t I? I keep you entertained.”

I clench my fists at his silky, patronizing tone and remind myself that I do need my cousin.

“Surely you have more important things for me to do than protect some on-again, off-again fiancée of yours.”

That riles him. There’s nothing my cousin wants to project more than absolute control over everything. Even love. That’s normally how it works in the Bratva — a wife is another symbol of your power. Your ability to bend the world to your will.

“It’s not like that. She’s valuable.” His tone turns vicious. “That bitch and her father have kept me waiting. You’re the only one I trust to keep her out of harm’s way without sampling the merchandise yourself.”

This is the side of our Pakhan that people don’t normally see. He keeps it behind closed doors. Outwardly, he’s charming and friendly.

I’m his weapon of choice for the dirty work that doesn’t look so pretty.

It’s never involved a girl before. Not someone who didn’t deserve some kind of retribution, who seemed so far from our world.

I shake my head, brushing a strand of hair back from where it flops in front of my eyes. “I don’t like it. This isn’t what I do.”

He shrugs. “It’s not so different from what you normally do. Whatever it takes to keep her out of sight and out of danger, I want you to do it. Take her. Lock her up in the cells. Away from the Irish.”

“You want me to lock your fiancée in the cells? Sounds like you should keep your woman in line, not me.”

Suddenly Semyon’s leaning over me. I rise to my full height, reminding him of who will win if he tries to punch me again. It won’t be the one of us who sits inside at a desk half the time and attends lavish parties the other half of the time.

He grabs the neck of my t-shirt. “Don’t make me remind you what you owe me, Vitya. You’ll do as I ask.”

“Fine.” I spit the word in his face. He looks as though he wants to try something, but the anger fades from his face as he takes in my bunched up fists.

Semyon flinches when he sees the barely controlled rage in my eyes.

“Good.” He controls himself once again. “I need you to take this seriously.”

One thing about Semya is he’s always been able to read people.

Ever since we were kids. He knows how to push me, but not too far.

Not over an edge. He used to play these elaborate games where he would see exactly how far he could goad me.

He sits across the table from me and appears to content himself with the fact that I’ve agreed.

Semyon hands me a file with photos of Lisette and details of her schedule. I can’t stop a frown from stealing across my face as I absorb the information.

Where the hell did he find this girl? She’s… Wholesome. Her days consist of dance teaching and looking after her younger brother. She lives with her parents in New Jersey.

A delicate blonde thing. Normally wearing bright colors that speak of an exuberance Semyon will be sure to train out of her.

Years younger than him, though that’s not so unusual in our circles.

She’s not polished in the way Bratva wives normally are.

In her photos, she doesn’t seem to wear much make-up, her soft pink lips and sea-green eyes the most vibrant things about her.

No connections. No name. Nothing to imply that she has any reason to enter the dark and twisted world of the Bratva.

“Why her?” I drop the photos on the table, disgusted at the thought of having to drag someone into this organization.

The Pakhan of the Russian Bratva — one of the most powerful organized crime associations in New York — could have literally anyone.It’s uncharacteristic of Semyon to choose someone without a power play attached.

Has he really fallen in love? Or does this girl have some kind of worth that I can’t see?

“She’s proof that I don’t need an arranged marriage.” He stops himself before saying more, like there’s something he’s not divulging.

“Really? You don’t think it would be helpful to have a new ally around the table?”

I can’t help but analyze how this will play with the rest of the Council. This kind of calculus is second nature. Marrying a nobody with a French name is hardly going to help Semyon with his leadership of the Council.

The last Pakhan was paranoid. I wonder if Semyon’s going too far the other way.

“She looks young,” I comment. If I’m getting involved, I want to know more about her, how she came to be involved in all of this.

He flaps a hand. “As if that matters. She’s twenty-one now.”

“You dated her? How did you meet?”

“It hasn’t been easy, Viktor. Securing her hand took years of offers, gifts, conversations with her father.

” He rubs his temples, as though his engagement was a business strategy that took more energy than he’d expected.

“Once she finally realized how lucrative this could be, she agreed to marry me.”

So he’s bought her. I should never have doubted that he would lack the capacity for romance.

I note he doesn’t want to answer my second question about how they met.

“How thoughtful. Love isn’t dead.” I can’t help but let my mouth twitch into a wry smile. Just when I thought Semyon might be capable of a human emotion, he proves me wrong.

His face turns stony. “Love doesn’t matter. Winning her does.”

That sounds more like my cousin. She’s a prize in a game he’s playing.

By marrying a nobody, he would prove that he can marry whomever he wants and he’s still safe at the top. That he has the kind of power that doesn’t give a fuck about the Council and its spider-web network of influence. The kind of power that rules alone.

It’s a risky, unpredictable move. If he pulls it off, it will prove he’s safe. If he doesn’t, our family goes up in flames.

I sigh. There’s no point in resisting. What Semyon wants, he’ll get.

“Send me the details. I’ll make sure she’s safe while you’re in Chicago.”