Page 43 of Sadistic

The mundane machinery of the empire that never stops, even for weddings.

My phone buzzes with a text from an unknown number.

I almost dismiss it until I read the message:

She was mine first. This isn't over.

Njal.

Somehow, the bastard got a burner phone.

I forward it to Vadim with instructions to find the phone and destroy it.

Then I text Mikhail:

Double the surveillance on Njal. If he so much as drives in her direction, I want to know.

An hour later, I'm meeting my father at the private airfield.

He's already on the jet, reviewing files, dressed in his usual dark suit that makes him look like what he is—a man who breaks people for a living.

"You're late," he says without looking up.

"I was handling something."

"The boy?" He sets down the files. "Mikhail briefed me. We should eliminate the problem."

"Not yet." I settle into the leather seat across from him. "Killing him now will make Revna a widow before she's a wife. Bad idea. Wouldn't look good."

"Since when do you care about optics?"

"Since I need her cooperation, not plotting revenge." The jet starts taxiing. "Besides, he's more useful alive. Let him drink himself stupid, let everyone see him falling apart. Makes me look like the better option."

"Youarethe better option."

"I know that. You know that. But she needs to know it too." I accept the drink he offers—whiskey, too early for it, but this conversation requires it. "Tell me about Reyes."

"Bembe Reyes. Thirty-two. Planned some resurgence of the cartel we obliterated for the Raiders." My father pulls out a photo—young, handsome, with the kind of smile that hides how violent he really is. "His brother Miguel was killed by our people when it all went down."

"The fight that ended the war."

"Yes, it was supposed to end it," he corrects. "Bembe sees it differently. To him, it was murder."

"It was business."

"Try telling him that." The jet lifts off, Tallahassee falling away below us. "He's not like others before him. At least Roque and Luis understood the rules—you win some, you lose some, you move on. Bembe takes everything personally."

"Hence why he's targeting prospects."

"He's sending a message. The question is what we send back."

I stare out the window at the clouds below.

Somewhere down there, Revna's probably hanging out with her family, processing the way her future will be changing shortly.

In a few hours, she'll be trying on wedding dresses with my mother and sister.

The collision of worlds makes my chest tight, and I think I might actually be excited.