Page 52 of The Tsar’s Obsession (Bratva Sinners #1)

A Choice

Kirill

What’s that stupid phrase? If you love someone, let them go, and if they come back to you, it was meant to be. No. If you love someone, never, ever let them out of your sight.

Mia felt so frail in my arms. She’d lost weight, her face was emaciated, and her shoulder blades scraped against my hands. Her heartbreak was my heartbreak. Her pain was my pain. Her devastation was my death. She couldn’t even look at me, and I genuinely wondered if I should even continue living.

After I saw her, I ordered meals to arrive at her doorstep every morning. I couldn’t bear the thought that she wasn’t eating.

I stayed silent, keeping tabs on her just like before, never reaching out.

I wanted to give her space to understand that she made a mistake breaking this off, just like I made a mistake with Ari.

I really was a different man when I met her.

I thought I could live how I always did: just getting what I wanted, no matter the consequences.

Consequences weren’t for me; they were for others. But I didn’t live like that anymore. And the consequences of this year’s decisions were about to be revealed when the day of The Skhodka finally arrived.

Polina would be absent. The doctors had no explanation as to why she hadn’t been able to wake up. A few times they pulled her back from the dead, and every time I visited, she remained pale and unconscious, the steady beeping of her heart monitor repeating to me how much of a failure I’d been.

She wouldn’t be at the meeting, and that was a big blow to my reputation.

The location was only revealed to the attendees that morning. Dmitry had planned it, and for some unknown reason, he chose a golf club in Brooklyn. My annoyance could not inflate anymore, and instead of reading him a lecture, I merely accepted it.

I sat in my car, staring at the red light. If I turned right, I could head toward Mia's apartment. I would simply walk in, take her, bring her back home, and we would work it the fuck out. If I turned left, I'd get to the meeting on time.

The decision between love and duty was being lived out in real time. I turned left, knowing that in the evening, I would show up at her door and sleep on the floor of the hallway until she opened it.

The private room was dimly lit. Leather couches and upholstered walls reminded me of some English country house, and I fucking hated it. I hated everything when Mia wasn’t in my life.

Everyone was here from all corners. Roman Agapov—my California contact. Alex Martinov and Andrei Pavlov from Miami. Mikhail Morozov flew in from London, and my one American—James Brooks from Boston. Danila would call in. The rest trickled in, bringing the total to fifteen men.

This event was to be both inconspicuous and also teeming with everyone’s security details. Did I trust my men? Yes. Did they trust each other? Fuck no.

But there was one man missing, inexplicably late: Dmitry.

After our little incident, it’s like the fog had lifted from his eyes. He was back to being regular, old Dmitry, the same man I had worked with all these years. He apologized for the disrespect, and I accepted it, not having any true desire to forgive anyone for anything.

Dead inside, my body was slumped in a deep leather chair, the whisky glass hanging from my fingers as the seconds ticked, but he wasn’t here. There wasn’t even a text. Taking a step outside, I called.

The line rang and rang, but he didn’t pick up. Instead, a text arrived.

Dmitry: Stuck in traffic behind some fucking protest! Start without me.

What.

The.

Fuck.

I stared at the text, all my senses screaming at me that something was off, something was happening…something was wrong.

And just then, her name lit up the screen.

Mia.

The phone shaking in my hand, I read her name over and over again, both joy and deep fear swelling inside me.

"Baby?!” My panic echoed inside me as I breathed into the phone, but she remained silent, the seconds feeling like hours.

"Hi Kirill." She pronounced my name, her angelic voice shaking with fear, and my heart plummeted.

Fuck.

"Mia," I prayed. "Talk to me, baby, what's wrong?!" I pressed my ear against the phone, desperately trying to piece together where she was.

"So many things are wrong for you, baby. " And that voice, that voice I wouldn't be able to mistake even if I were dead. "Did you start your most important meeting of the year? Did you figure it all out yet?”

I did. I figured it all out in that moment. My closest partner, the man who had been my brother, the one I’d been through everything with, set me up. Betrayed me. The betrayal was staring me right in the eyes all this time.

"I'm listening."

"I'm sure you are," Dmitry continued. " You’re going to have to make an important choice today. Either you choose to stay at the top and walk back inside that meeting room but lose your little fuck toy.” I gulped and shut my eyes at his filthy words.

"Or you give it all up to get a little more playtime with her.”

Images of the last year flashed before my eyes.

There were no whispers about my position at the top—he started and spread them.

There were no problems with the Italians or the Colombians—he set it up.

The chain didn’t fall into Mia’s hands by accident—he placed it there, having been to our house multiple times.

Polina didn’t climb into that noose by herself—he hung her.

"But there's a secret third option," he continued slowly, holding all the power.

"You can head to the hospital and save Polina. She has about an hour left in her IV. I was always good at math; I put the correct dose in.” His mocking tone pushed all my buttons.

“You play by my rules? I won’t kill her before you get here. "

In my race to have it all, to stay at the top, to hold onto power—I was about to lose everything.

“Tell me your rules.”