Page 36 of Stolen Empire

She knows I'm watching, and she's trying to ignore it.

She keeps flicking a gaze up at me, and I don't turn away from it.

I've been waiting for something like this to happen, for just the right tool to fall into my lap.

Now I have that tool and if I fuck it up by being distracted by her, it might not happen again.

Ever since I killed that man, his family has been itching for revenge.

It's come up in some violent ways—stealing from us, pressuring the track, leaning on our contacts and assets.

And most recently, outright attacks on my life any time I leave the track and they notice.

It has to stop.

"I need to explain why you're here," I tell her softly.

I've got one shot at this, one chance to make Katya Volsky's gift work for me instead of against me.

She was good enough to convince Rodion to slip up, and now she will convince my enemies to slip up too.

She looks up, her gray-green eyes wary.

"I'm here because you dragged me here at gunpoint."

"You're here because I have a job for you. One that requires your particular skills."

"What job?"

I set my drink down and cross my arms, leaning back against the counter and suck in a deep breath to push away some of my tension.

"Nine years ago, my father ordered me to kill a man. He was part of the Radich crew, a soldier who'd been stealing from us. I was nineteen, and it was my initiation into the family business. So I did it. I beat him to death in an alley behind a bar in Mytishchi, and I left him there for his crew to find."

Katya's face doesn't change, but I see the flicker of understanding in her eyes.

She's not frightened of me right now, but she knows that which I'm capable of.

After she helped me remove Rodion and learned of it, that was when the fear manifested.

This is patient understanding, her absorbing parts of my world typically left covered and hidden, but she has to know the reason I need her as my asset or she'll have no motivation to follow through.

"The man I killed had a younger brother," I continue.

"He's climbed the ranks since then, and now he's out for blood. My blood. For the past nine months, I've had men stalking me, hunting me, waiting for the right moment to strike. They're Radich crew, and they're not going to stop until I'm dead."

"So kill them," she says, her voice flat.

"You're good at that."

Her eyes drop to her food, and she pushes it around the dish with the utensil before taking another bite.

Then she lifts one eyebrow and smirks at me.

It's not funny, and she knows it, but I've learned not to grab the bitey end of a snake.

She won't push my buttons like that.

"I can't kill them all. There are too many, and I don't know who gave the order. I need to find out who's pulling the strings, who's orchestrating this hunt, so I can end it permanently. And that's where you come in."