Page 14

YULIAN

Time slows to a crawl. Just for a moment—enough for Maksim’s words to sink in.

Then it picks back up at twice the speed. “Explain,” I bark.

“Shot through the head,” Maksim says. “At his place, across the street.”

I freeze. It’s impossible. I didn’t hear anything. No gunfire, no commotion, no nothing—how can he be fucking dead ?

But Maksim’s face is paler than I’ve ever seen it, and I can tell he isn’t joking. He’d never joke about this.

My gaze locks with Mia’s. All her fury seems to have ebbed away, replaced by worry. Subconsciously, her hand flies to her belly.

“Go,” she urges. “We’ll be fine.”

I don’t want to go. To leave her here, unguarded, goes against every single one of my instincts. She’s mine . I don’t leave what’s mine, ever.

Maksim seems to read on my face how reluctant I am. “I’ll call Nikita,” he offers. “She should be with the movers right now, in the parking lot.”

Parking lot. A thirty-second elevator ride up. It’s longer than I’d like, but it’ll have to do.

“Do it,” I order.

Before I can rush out, Mia grabs my sleeve. Our argument still lingers in the air—all the sharp accusations we’ve thrown at each other.

But something else lingers, too. Something softer. It’s in Mia’s eyes, big and blue and scared, but not for herself. Never for herself.

“Be careful,” she whispers.

It takes me a long moment to reply. Now more than ever, the idea of leaving her side cleaves me in half. “Lock the door behind him,” I bark. “Don’t open for anyone. Nikita has a key.”

“Okay,” Mia promises. She doesn’t argue, doesn’t fight me for once. Just does exactly as she’s told. “Stay safe.”

It’s not a vow I can make. But I’ve got no other choice. If anything happens to me, Mia will be left to fend for herself. She won’t last a day against Prizrak on her own, let alone against Desya. The kids and her—they’d all be doomed.

And I’m not going to let that happen.

Not to this family, too.

Slavik’s apartment is a short walk from my penthouse. He lives in the building across from StarTech—a skyscraper I bought as an employee benefit for our department heads and executives. It has thirty-two floors, with over a hundred apartments, all fitted with state-of-the-art security.

When I get there, Zhenya’s waiting for me, her face dark like death itself.

“Give me a status report,” I demand.

“He’s inside,” she says. Zhenya is never a ray of sunshine, but if looks could kill, her black eyes would turn into weapons of mass murder today. “I was with him when it happened. That fucking sniper nearly got me, too.”

“Did anyone touch anything?”

“No,” she assures me. “No one in or out. Anton’s sending his men out on every rooftop as we speak.”

“Good. Now, walk me through it.”

We step inside. Slavik’s apartment is as lavish as his vor lifestyle allows: crystal chandeliers, marble countertops, a Ming vase he bought at an underground auction.

That vase is now shattered in a thousand pieces. So is his glass wall.

Slavik’s body is lying prone on the ground. A dark stain has spread under his body. I touch the blood—still warm.

I don’t get the luxury of mourning. Every tear I had, I already shed.

Slavik Pushkin. My most steadfast vor. Out of everyone, he had the coolest head, the greatest experience, and the safest revenue.

He obeyed without question and only spoke if he had something worthwhile to contribute.

More than once, his diplomatic attitude got the rest of the vory to stop snapping at each other’s throats and go get shit done.

He was a good soldier. He was an even better diplomat.

And now, he’s dead.

I crouch by the body. “Single shot?”

“Yeah, as far as I can tell.” Zhenya clicks her tongue in frustration. “They shot a couple more times to get me and Anton, but we ducked as soon as we saw the old man drop.”

Two holes glare at me from the opposite wall. When I step closer, I realize the bullets are still there.

“Maks,” I say, “call Tikhon. I want them analyzed.”

“Yes, boss.”

I dig the bullets out of the holes with my pocket knife. When they drop into my palm, I realize there’s something written on them. Letters.

No—numbers.

Five. Six.

Without wasting a second, I stride back to Slavik’s body and turn it over.

The last bullet is stuck into his skull. “Maks,” I call. “Get this out, now.”

Maksim’s face looks a little queasy. “You want me to dig around Slavik’s brain?”

“Unless you’ve got a better option for retrieving the bullet.”

I can tell his scruples are bothering him. Out of all my men, Maksim has always been the most honorable. But right now, I don’t need honor. I need to get shit done, and I need it yesterday.

Muttering curses in Russian, Maksim slips on a pair of gloves and gets to work.

As he picks our dead comrade’s brain—literally—I take a turn around the room, looking for anything Zhenya might have missed.

On Slavik’s desk, I find it.

“Did the mail come while you were here?” I ask.

“Yeah.” Zhenya frowns. “Slavik was carrying it. We went up together. Why?”

“Did he open it?”

“No. We had business to get to. He left it all there.”

I sift through Slavik’s mail. Work, work, cable spam— there.

The second I see the envelope, I know.

It’s his handwriting. I could never mistake it for anyone else’s, not as long as I live.

Because the hand that wrote this is the same one that doomed my family.

Got you, bastard.

I empty out the envelope. A rain of orange pips falls to the ground—six in total.

Then a note.

“I’ve got it,” Maksim says, holding up the bloodstained bullet. “There’s something etched on it. It says?—”

“Four.”

He blinks. “How’d you know?”

“Because I know who did this. And what he’s going to do next.”

My blood is boiling. I crumple the note in my fist like it’s trash, fighting the urge to rip it to shreds.

“One down, five to go.”

“He didn’t fucking miss,” I growl. “He shot wide on purpose. He’s toying with us.”

Desya sent this to Slavik long before today. He was planning this—knew he was going to kill him before he even set foot at Brad’s inauguration gala, before he got his hands on Mia. This, all of this, was planned God knows when.

And he wants me to know it. Wants me to know exactly how many steps ahead he is.

“What does it mean?” Maksim asks, reading the note over my shoulder.

“It means war.”

Five to go. Six orange pips. Six bullets for six heads.

My five vory ? —

And Mia.