Page 1 of The Enemy’s Defector (Ivanov Syndicate #3)

KATERINA

I knew it.

I fucking knew it.

Hot tears leaked from my eyes. My vision blurred, but the image in front of me remained the same. I furiously wiped the moisture away and sucked in a deep inhale, trying to breathe through the pain of what I witnessed.

Finally, after so long of wondering and suspecting, I had proof.

Finally , I knew that my uncle had killed my father.

Again, because I had to convince myself that this wasn’t an optical illusion and that my eyes weren’t playing tricks on me, I pressed play .

The surveillance footage started over again, and just like the last ten times that I’d let this roll on the screen, my Uncle Anton lifted his arm and shot my father.

This was the moment Thomas Kozlov had died, and his death was all because of Anton.

I fucking knew it!

The urge to scream remained bottled within me. This deep-seated, burning rage festered in me, making my fingers tremble as I copied the old video to my external drive. Anger filled me with an intensity I could barely control, but I wasn’t blindsided by this revelation I’d found at last.

For years, I had a hunch that my uncle could’ve been the one to kill my father.

Ever since I lost my father, I’d had no one and nothing.

As the only child of a mother who died during my birth, I had no siblings.

Because an enemy had fought with Anton when they were younger and he was left sterile, I had no cousins.

All these years, I was alone and missing my family, and now, I had irrevocable proof that my uncle was no family of mine.

He was a power-hungry asshole. A murderer who’d take out his own brother just to be able to call himself the boss of the Kozlov Family.

I knew it.

Having proof that Anton killed my father gave me a sense of closure I’d been yearning for all this time. The loneliness I had to succumb to wasn’t justified with this fact, but now I knew. I knew how low Anton would stoop. I knew how long I could tolerate his presence.

Because with this final key to the mystery I could never solve about my father’s death, I was done. I was gone. If I ever saw Anton again, I would die trying to kill him.

Footsteps sounded out in the hallway, and I tensed.

Going completely still, I didn’t dare touch a button.

I couldn’t risk breathing. Holding the air in my lungs helped me to stave off the tears at seeing the image of my father’s last moments before his younger brother shot him in the face.

The gruesome image was something I’d never forget, and it would serve as the ultimate motivation to get as far away from here as I could.

The sounds of the guards walking down the corridor passed, and I exhaled slowly before I’d pass out for lack of oxygen.

Now that I had my proof, I had to get out of here. I extracted the drive from the computer and tucked the slim device in my pocket. Sneaking down to this storage area of the mansion hadn’t been easy, but so long as I could lean on a little more luck and get out of here, I’d be fine.

I was running out of time to pull this off.

Anton moved around a lot, staying at the various properties he owned.

With that nomadic lifestyle, he dragged me all over the place too.

He didn’t “trust” me because I talked back too much.

He didn’t “favor my presence” because I’d always been cold toward him, convinced he’d killed my family.

And he didn’t “care to see me” when I voiced how much I didn’t like the direction he was taking the Kozlov family after my father’s death.

I was the pain in the ass he didn’t want around, but he’d never trusted me to be unsupervised.

Any day now, he’d come back from his month-long trip to Greece.

And the second he returned, he’d know that I hadn’t gone along with his orders to fulfill an arranged marriage deal weeks ago.

I’d sent my maid in my place, praying that I’d have unsupervised and stealthy access to all the storage units to find the proof that he’d killed my father.

I had it now. A copy of that fateful day was on the drive in my pocket.

Sneaking upstairs to stop in my room, I watched the hallways and listened for the guards. I wasn’t supposed to be here, and I would be damned if any of these Kozlov men who stayed loyal to Anton would prevent me from leaving.

Ignoring the drying tears on my cheeks, I heeded my heightened senses and snuck back up to the floor where my old room was.

No one stopped me on the way. No one crossed my path.

But the second I opened my bedroom door, rushed in, then quietly but quickly closed the door behind me, I panicked at the sight of someone in here.

Rushing forward to stop her from turning and squeaking in alarm, I wrapped my arm around the housekeeper’s neck and covered her mouth with my hand.

“It’s me,” I whispered. “It’s me , Joann.”

The gentle, older woman stopped resisting, turning her wide-open and panicked eyes toward me. her frail body sagged in relief and I withdrew my arm.

“Oh, Katerina.” She spun to hug me tightly, then held me at arm’s length. “What is going on? Why are you here? Where have you been?” She strained to swallow after that rant of frantic whispers.

“I…” I shook my head, saddened all over again about my father’s death to tell her what I’d discovered. It didn’t matter how much time passed. The hole in my heart that he’d left behind would forever pain me. “I…”

“Where have you been all month?” she insisted, almost maternal about it. She was the only motherly figure I’d had my whole life. As she asked it, she scanned me critically, inventorying me to see if I was hurt. “I’ve been worried sick about you!”

“I’ve been checking all the properties for evidence of what happened the day my father was killed. Since Anton’s in Greece and he couldn’t supervise me closely, I had to take this chance to find the truth once and for all.”

She nodded, her brow furrowed. “But he’s coming back soon, if he’s not here already.”

“I know?—”

“And Lucy has gone missing!”

I shook my head. “No. She’s not. Anton wanted me to fulfill a marriage arrangement made between Father and Grigory Ivanov. I was supposed to go there a month ago and marry one of the brothers, but since this would be my only chance to look for the evidence, I sent Lucy there in my place.”

She gaped at me, shocked. “Katerina! You didn’t.”

I nodded again. “I did. I asked her to take my place and dupe them while I hunted for answers.” I licked my lips, rushed and getting antsy about standing around like a sitting duck here.

She had a good point. Anton had to be coming back soon, and I didn’t want to be caught here when he returned.

He’d be furious that I thwarted his plans.

While I didn’t give a damn how mad he was with me, I had to have some resources to avenge my father and kill my uncle.

“I told her I’d pay for her mother’s care if she did that for me.

And I will.” I still didn’t understand why the payment I’d put in didn’t go through.

I’d try again, but it didn’t bode well for me.

When that payment was canceled, I had to worry that it meant Anton or Dmitri, his loyal assistant, had noticed the payment and stopped it.

“I need to go.”

“Now,” Joann insisted. “If Anton comes back and sees that you didn’t follow his orders…”

I went to grab my bag, shoving clothes in it at random. “I know. I know.”

She came with me, hurrying to hand me things to stash in the bag. “He’ll be so furious that you’ve defied him. And he’s going to know. I heard Dmitri wondering where Lucy was.”

I narrowed my eyes, hating that overzealous guard. I’d stopped him from trying to grope that sweet little maid before.

“I told him that she must have quit,” Joann said, still furrowing her brow.

“I’m sure she’s safe with the Ivanovs,” I said, still keeping my voice low. “She had to have married Damon or Saul.”

“Not Nikolai?” She raised her brows at me, well aware of how close I was with Nikolai Ivanov. Or how close I tried not to be with that man who’d always tempted me.

“No.” I shook my head. “Because he’s not at home.” I scowled and glanced at her. “Nik was captured.” I roughly straightened the bag to zip it closed. “And now that I’m done looking for evidence about my father’s death, I can dedicate all my efforts toward tracking him down.”

Since I first heard the guards in the house talking about Nik being captured, I instinctively knew Anton had to have played a hand in it.

In my downtime, I hacked and searched for clues to where Nik could be held, but I hadn’t been able to find him at any of the Kozlov properties.

I’d snuck out at night to check outer buildings on this estate, to no avail.

“You’ll go after him?”

I nodded, looking Joann in the eye. “I have to.”

Joann winced. “But Katerina…”

“I have to ,” I repeated. Nikolai Ivanov was supposed to be my enemy.

Since Father’s death and Anton’s rule, the long-standing friendship between the families disintegrated.

Father and Grigory Ivanov were once friends.

Allies. I used to get along with the Ivanov brothers when we were all children.

Under Anton’s rule, though, he clearly set them apart as the enemy, too envious to want all they had.

I’d never been able to fall in line. My uncle could never convince me that I could loathe and scorn the Ivanovs. Nik wasn’t my enemy. And he was still the one man I could never betray. Not with my heart, mind, or soul.

Even if it meant defecting from the Kozlov Family, I was ready to take that final step.

“I have to find Nik,” I told Joann.

“You’ll get yourself killed,” she insisted sternly, still not raising her voice in case anyone was listening. “I’m surprised you haven’t been killed yet, snooping around for evidence all this last month!”

I shook my head, stuck in my ways and disregarding her worries.

“Is that why you sent Lucy in your place?” she asked. “Because you knew Nik wasn’t home and you couldn’t marry one of his brothers?”

“Yes. And no.” I slung the strap to the bag over my shoulder and faced her.

I wasn’t taking much, but that was for the best. No material things here would bring back my father.

No trinkets or valuables would serve me well as I looked for Nik and hid from Anton.

This was it. A final, clean break. The only things that mattered to me were the pictures I had of my father, all the digital images I’d saved when Anton cleared all photos of him in the house.

Those photos were safe on my cloud. The necklace my father gave me on the last birthday of mine that he’d been alive for rested on my chest, secure as ever. I had all I needed and wanted.

“I couldn’t marry another Ivanov,” I told her, the mere thought of it too ridiculous to consider.

“And I couldn’t leave to marry anyone else.

These last few weeks were my only chance to find the evidence that Anton killed Father.

He assumed I would be elsewhere, waiting for him to contact me to probably spy for him.

It was my only chance to get the evidence.

” Once more, scalding hot tears escaped my eyes.

“Oh…” Her expression fell as she pulled me in for a hug. “He killed him, didn’t he?”

I nodded, rubbing my wet face on her shoulder and wishing it weren’t true. Wishing that my father was still alive to this day.

“He did,” I told her. “He didn’t hesitate to kill him.”

As she rubbed my back, giving me the comfort she could, I vowed to myself that this wouldn’t be the last time I’d see her.

This couldn’t be the last time that we’d hug and be there for each other.

I’d never been allowed to have privacy or a life of my own under my uncle’s supervision.

I’d never had friends except for the hired help.

I pulled back and wiped my eyes. “I’ll come for you, Joann. Once I find Nik and help him get home to his family, I’ll ask him to help me get you out of here.”

She sighed, frowning like she wasn’t brave enough to tell me not to get my hopes up.

“I will,” I insisted. Since seeing the proof of my father’s death, now knowing Anton had killed him, I was embracing this last chapter.

I was closing this period of being a Kozlov for good.

I couldn’t tell what I would be in the future or where I could end up, but I had to view this as a way to forge my own path. My own identity.

Disobeying Anton’s orders to be married off and likely end up as a spy for him was the first strike.

Sneaking around and finding the evidence he’d hidden of my father’s death was a second strike.

But defying my devious and manipulative uncle to free Nik, the so-called enemy he had to have imprisoned on a property he owned, that would be the third and final strike.

I was out of here.

I would never come back to these empty halls and loveless residences he inhabited.

And I didn’t feel an ounce of remorse, too high on this fresh anger after seeing the video of Anton shooting my father.

“I have to go now,” I told her, shaking my head at how impossible those words sounded as they left my lips. “I can’t stay here any longer.”

“Be safe. Please, Katerina.” She pulled my head lower so she could kiss my forehead. “ Please be safe.”

“I will.”

Within reason.

It took guts to send my maid in my place for a marriage and then hide. It took determination to sneak around and hack into computers and search for that hidden video. And it would take more grit and gumption to seek out the enemy I wasn’t supposed to want to save.

“Maybe you can let Nik’s brothers find him,” Joann argued with a cringe. “Let them handle that while you figure out how to hide and stay away from Anton.”

“No.” I shook my head. If I was defecting and turning against the Kozlov name, it would be to rescue the one man I could never tell myself to stay away from.

I’m coming to find you, Nikolai.

Be patient and wait for me.

Yet, as I turned to go, I had no clear vision in my mind of where I could end up after doing this one last good deed in defiance of my uncle.