Page 11

NIKOLAY

S urprise! Everyone knows about your vampires.

Nikolay gritted his teeth as he stood looking out of his St. Petersburg mansion. Elizabeth was sleeping, as she had for days, since being kidnapped by Brayden Moretti and his big oaf of a sidekick.

He hadn’t expected that. God knows why, but he thought the vampire would rush to get his mate and be putty in his hands.

Yet again, he’d underestimated them.

Nikolay figured they knew he had Elizabeth—a former BioZen employee—but not that she was his wife and someone he, well, yes, loved.

Fuck it.

He’d lusted after her the moment he laid eyes on her. Stolen her from Xander and then kidnapped her. She was the filthiest and sexiest little Italian slut he’d ever met. Perfect for him.

When Elizabeth had told him she was pregnant, there had been no choice but to marry her. After a fast private ceremony, they were now awaiting the birth of his heir.

Flying her to Russia after the trauma of being taken by the vampires was not ideal. Neither was staying in the United States. It wasn’t an option.

Not after that stupid fucking human revealed to the world that vampires truly did exist.

Talk about stealing his thunder.

He’d had to listen to his partners in crime—literally—rub it in his face. Specifically, Enzo, mob boss of the NYC Italian Mafia. He enjoyed every minute.

“Surprise, everyone knows about your vampires.” He’d blown out his cigar smoke with glee in his eyes.

Idiot.

But the partnership was dead and ineffective, so Nikolay no longer gave a fuck. They were useless to him now.

After instructing them to do everything in their power to produce the serum which put vampires into a temporary sleep, the gang leaders had got to work agreeing to a percentage of the profit.

Instead, the government had destroyed their plants and distribution channels.

Which confirmed his suspicions. Someone at the top of the food chain in the US knew about vampires. Otherwise, why would they have put that much resource into stopping them?

They didn’t for drugs. Proving how much they cared about their doped-up citizens.

Not much.

Probably because the crime families lined enough of the politician’s pockets to keep them off their backs. How people didn’t connect the fucking dots, he didn’t know.

Idiots.

All of them.

“What’s the plan, Pakhan?” Alexis asked, leaning with his arms crossed on the corner of the wall.

Nikolay turned to his second and stared for a long moment. On a nearby sofa, Demetri sat with his arm along the back of the furniture. He gazed at him next before speaking. “We can’t trust them.”

“Who, the vamps?” Demetri asked.

“The families,” Alexis replied. “Their value has diminished.”

That was why he was his second-in-charge.

“Exactly.” Nikolay tossed back the vodka he’d been nursing and threw the glass at the far wall.

Smash!

“Jesus.” Demetri jumped.

“Clean it up,” Nikolay barked in Russian as his maid appeared. She scrambled inside with her tools and began to sweep up the crystal.

“Fucking Enzo and his smart mouth. Fucking Italians. Fuck him.” Nikolay growled. “Send out men still on the ground in the US to destroy remaining information.”

“Got it.” Demetri began to scroll his phone.

Alexis watched the maid and when the door closed behind her, he glanced back at Nikolay.

He was tired of playing with idiots. If the president or someone close to him in the US had known about vampires and the serum, then they’d always been two or three steps ahead of him.

Vincent Moretti had outplayed him.

That was not okay.

Well, Nikolay had one more move up his sleeve. It was a volatile play, one that took everything to a whole new level. It would make him an extremely powerful and rich man, and allow him to leave a non-criminally funded business to his heir, securing his future.

And destroy the vampire race.

But not before he had profited from it.

Nikolay smiled darkly.

“Get me the phone number for President Volkov,” Nikolay said to Alexis, referring to the Russian president.

The gangster barely flinched.

But he had, and for good reason.

This move was dangerous.

Thirty minutes later, he was handed a phone. “ Privet Gospodin Prezident .”

“Mr. Mikhailov,” the president replied after a brief silence. “It is only out of curiosity that I have taken your call.”

Nikolay smiled. “Trust me, I’m about to make your day.”

“Is that right?” His sarcasm wasn’t missed, but it didn’t sway Nikolay. Not when he knew he was the only man on the planet with the power to change the path for both races.

He’d made sure he was protected before speaking to the politician.

Nikolay wasn’t an idiot.

He’d been the head of the family for many years, and anyone who underestimated him—even the president—was stupid.

“I’m about to hand you more power than any individual on the planet.” Nikolay rubbed his thumb and finger over his chin. “Well, almost everyone.”

Not him.

He would need to hold all the cards. Or no deal.

There was a long silence.

Nikolay waited. He knew a man like Volkov couldn’t resist the opportunity to find out more. It was why he’d taken his call despite neither of them meeting before.

The leader knew who he was. Nikolay was the infamous Pakhan of the Russian Mafia, so of course, he did.

“I’m listening,” he finally replied.

Nikolay grinned and walked to the floor-to-ceiling windows and took in the little people below. He was just a few steps away from being more powerful than all the kings in history.

“Good. Then I need to meet in person. There is no device secure enough for what I have to share with you.”

“You have big balls, Mikhailov. You have thirty seconds to prove you aren’t wasting my time.”

He’d only need five.

“I knew about the vampire race months ago. I’ve met them and I know how to enslave them.”

Silence.

“ Trakhni menya .”

Which, translated into English, meant fuck me.

Nikolay poured himself a shot of vodka and tossed it back. There was some shuffling of paper and furniture through the phone as he waited.

“A car will collect you in one hour to fly you to Moscow.”

Then the line went dead.

Nikolay slid the device into his pocket and turned to his team.

“Get the case out of the safe. We’re going to the Kremlin.”