Nikolai: The Complete Collection

17. Nikolai

17

NIKOLAI

“ S top here.”

I keep my eyes arrested on the cab we’ve been following for the past twenty minutes while yanking a bundle of cash out of my pocket.

I only saw the quickest glimpse of the man’s profile before he entered the idling taxi at McCarran Airport, but I’m confident he is Rico.

I’d never forget his face, not in a million years.

I track the dark-haired man when he curls out of the taxi and darts across the sidewalk. When he presses a buzzer on a private entrance, I throw a wad of cash at my driver.

“Go,” I instruct before sliding out the back passenger door.

The driver peers at me over his shoulder, his expression unamused. “Where?”

“I don’t fucking care where you go, just go!” I roar, my loud voice startling a group of people mingling on the sidewalk.

Fortunately, Rico is too busy scanning a list of names at the entrance of an apartment building half a block up to hear me.

My eyes stray to the driver. “I won’t need your services for the remainder of the night.” I keep my tone neutral, though I’m feeling anything but.

The driver smiles a slick grin, assuming Justine’s departure has me returning to old habits.

It doesn’t.

I don’t care if she is gone for weeks, months, or even years. My cock isn’t interested in filling any crevice that isn’t hers.

“Enjoy your night,” the driver croons, his voice the type that makes me want to slit his throat so that I don’t have to hear it again.

After slamming the SUV’s door shut, I wait for it to disappear into the sea of traffic before I head in Rico’s direction. I keep my interest on the down-low, pretending I’m too busy eyeballing the scantily clad women watching me with zeal to pay him any attention.

It’s all a ruse. My interests are so piqued I’m tempted to walk straight up to him and call him out as a fraud.

Things were bad between Rico and me when he died. It probably didn’t help that I ordered a member of our crew to rape and murder his wife. I didn’t have a choice. I was acting on behalf of Vladimir. But Rico has never heard sense when it comes to Blaire—his little kitten.

Now, I better understand his desire to protect her. I’ve only known Justine for days, but the short time hasn’t weakened my resolve to keep her safe.

I’ll take a bullet for that woman.

I’ll even slit the throat of the man who raised me.

After scanning my location to ensure I’m not being followed, I shadow Rico down an alley. The adrenaline surging through me is as intense as when Justine quivers beneath me.

It’s only been days since I’ve killed a man, but the urge to inflict pain never tapers… except when she’s with me .

My hunger for Justine is stronger than any craving I’ve had.

Nothing can overwhelm it.

Not. One. Single. Fucking. Thing.

With my thoughts locked on Justine, I’m left defenseless when I’m suddenly clutched by the throat. I gasp for breaths through restricted airways when I’m slammed against a stack of bricks robbing my lungs of any oxygen they had left.

I take a second to gather my wits before retaliating. While slamming a hand down on the arm squeezing my neck, I throw an elbow into his midsection.

When he folds in pain, I inflict a left and right combination on his ribs before gripping his head between my hands. I practically climb the wall, giving myself enough leverage to snap his neck.

Expertly slithering out of my hold, he completes back-to-back left jabs to my ribs before ducking low to sweep my feet out from underneath me, sending me free-falling to the ground.

Blood surges to my face when I hit the concrete with a thud, the impact winding me more than his jabs to my ribs.

Gasping for air, I swing my leg out, bringing my accoster down to my level with a grunt. Before he can return to his feet, I crawl over his body and straddle his hips. With his hands protecting his face, I direct my focus to his stomach, spleen, and ribs.

He grunts, accepting each jab as if he is a born fighter.

My intuition is proven dead on point when the man taunts, “Is that all you got, Eli? You still hit like a girl.”

If I didn’t know I was fighting Rico, I have no doubts now. No one calls me Eli—except Rico. He knows how much I despised my name when I was a child— who wants to be named after the devil? —so years before I became the shadow of our father, Rico shortened my middle name.

It was something he only called me in private when we were safe from prying ears, but the name stuck.

Clearly, he hopes exposing himself will stop my onslaught on his body.

He’s dead wrong.

I said Rico and I were close.

We aren’t anymore.

I continue punishing Rico’s body with my fists, replicating the fights we’d had many times in our teens. Although brutal, those matches were nowhere near as violent as our bout today.

Rico retaliates to my anger with the same level of viciousness, battering my already aching ribs with forceful hits.

When his hands drop to inflict back-to-back jabs on my spleen, I take advantage of his exposed face. My fist connects with his left jaw with so much force his head slings sideways.

Growling, he throws me off his body as if I’m weightless. I spring to my feet, my determination as strong as it was the night he confronted me with his torture instruments of choice.

I understood why he was angry, but he never gave me a chance to explain why I ordered the hit on Blaire. He came at me guns blazing.

Rico and I stand toe-to-toe with heaving chests and raised hands. We are prepared to fight, but neither is advancing on the other.

Our mutual disdain for one another is unmissable in our sky-blue versus midnight-black stare down. He hates me for what I did to his wife, and I hate him for the years of misery he put me through believing he was dead.

Before his back was burned with acid, I considered him my brother, even without sharing the same blood, but the day he met Blaire changed everything. He protected her—a stranger—from members of our crew, which lost the Popov entity a valuable asset and disrespected our father in front of key members of a rival association.

When you disrespect Vladimir, you must be punished, and Vladimir used Rico’s punishment to make an example out of him. His penalty was a clear warning that no member of our entity was to put a woman’s needs above their commitment to our crew.

Rico was put through the absolute wringer. I’m still shocked to this day he survived.

Rico thinks his punishment was the end of it.

It wasn’t.

I couldn’t let it go. If Vladimir could do something so heinous to his own flesh and blood, what chance did I stand of making it past my teens?

I went to Vladimir that night both wanting my freedom and justice for Rico. I was right there, with my knife pressed against his jugular, but no matter how many times I tried to drag it across his throat, I couldn’t do it.

Vladimir had fucked with my head so badly, with only a few words, he convinced me Rico was in the wrong and deserved to be punished.

I paid for my wrongdoing as severely as Rico did.

You know your childhood was shit when a two-week-long stint in the hospital was two of the best weeks of your life. Roman never left my side, and I even had the occasional visit from my mother. Having the nursing staff fuss over me like I was a god made me feel invincible. So much so that I believed every dribbled promise spilled from Carmichael’s mouth.

“If you just speak up, I guarantee you’ll never step foot in his house again.”

That was the false promise that sealed the deal for me. That was all I wanted—to escape Vladimir’s clutches, so I stupidly believed Carmichael.

I was a fucking idiot.

Even more than I am now.

Rico’s dark brow slants when I drop my fists to my sides. I keep them balled, but my stance is nowhere near as irate as it was moments ago.

Running my tongue along my lips, I clear away a smear of blood dripping over them before saying, “You know I didn’t have a choice, Rico. Blaire was a liability.”

His fists clench more firmly as he glares at me with murderous black eyes. “You had a choice. You could have come to me.”

“And say what?” I reply, half laughing. “I’ve been ordered to kill your wife or be killed? That would have landed us in that dungeon even faster than when you discovered I’d set her up.”

He drags his hand under his nose, wiping away the bloody contents before gluing his fists to his sides, loosening his defensive stance. “You could have warned me?—”

“I did,” I interrupt, glaring at him. “How the fuck do you think you escaped RaRa’s clutches so fast that night? I intervened, saving your hide from her infamous thirty-minute ramblings.”

Rico stills as his eyes dart between mine. I can tell the moment clarity forms in his mind as his pupils expand and his lips part for air.

“I ordered the hit on Blaire, but I made sure the timeframe matched your return to her room,” I admit. “But I didn’t factor RaRa into the equation. When your sights were set on Blaire, usually nothing could deter you. I just forgot how fucking stubborn RaRa can be.” I stop for a moment, my heart rate lowering. “Could be.”

“RaRa’s gone?” Rico asks, his low tone indicating I’m not the only one who craved RaRa’s attention.

I nod. “A little over three months ago. She went peacefully.”

I don’t know what compelled me to say my last sentence. Probably something to do with RaRa being Vladimir’s first whore. Most of his whores don’t make it to the age of thirty. RaRa turned seventy-three the week before her death. In mafia time, that’s the equivalent of three lifetimes.

When a tension-filled silence passes between Rico and me, I ask, “What are you doing here, Rico? Why come back now? If Vladimir finds out you’re alive, he’ll have a bounty on your head by the end of the day.”

I step back, stunned by his reply when he answers, “I came to help you. You’re ruffling so many feathers you are gonna get yourself killed.” He shrugs as if unsure how to say his next sentence. “I don’t want that to happen, so I’m here to ensure it doesn’t.”

I laugh a little, finding the situation amusing. I have blood streaming down my cheek from a large gash on my right brow, and possibly three broken ribs, compliments of his return to Vegas, but I’m supposed to believe he is here because he’s worried about me.

For the first time, I lack a retort when he asks, “Is it true? Did you try to kill Vladimir after what he did to me?”

The veins in my neck twang. “How do you know about that?”

“That doesn’t matter. Is it true?” His tone is half wrathful, half uneasy.

“Yeah, it’s true.” The shortness of my reply doesn’t lessen its impact.

Air whizzes out of Rico’s mouth as if my reply winded him more than my fists. “Jesus Christ, why didn’t you tell me, Nikolai?”

I shrug, acting like it’s no big deal. “You would have done the same for me.”

He nods, not attempting to hide the honesty in his eyes. While scrubbing his hand along his bloodstained jaw, he strays his shocked gaze to me. “Who are you protecting from him now?”

My lips twitch, but before a lie can spill from my mouth, he warns, “If you lie to me, I’ll be on the first plane home, leaving you to clean up the bloodbath on your own.”

Blood floods my chest, puffing it high. I’m not the same Nikolai Rico left behind three years ago. I can take care of myself.

“I don’t need your help, so you’re more than welcome to march your ass back to the airport and catch the first flight home.”

His brow arches high into his clipped hair. “You don’t need my help?”

I shake my head, my arrogance at an all-time high. “Nope. Survived many years without you. Will survive many more just as well.”

Rico grins as his coal-colored eyes glare into mine. “You’ve always been a stubborn fuck. That will be your downfall, Nikolai. You aren’t living. This isn’t living.” He waves his knuckle-busted hand around the alleyway we are standing in. “Whoever has you so twisted up you’re making stupid mistakes… that’s living. Raising my son far away from this life… that’s living. Playing into Vladimir’s hand with the same fucked-up games he played on us our entire life… that isn’t living. That’s surviving… one fucking miserable day at a time.”

“You have a son?” I mutter, starting at the only shocking thing in his long-winded statement.

Everything else he said was true, so it doesn’t need rehashing.

“Yeah,” he replies, his eyes twinkling with a gleam I’ve never seen in them before. “We named him Eli.”

Shock slams into me, blindsiding me. “Why the fuck would you name him after me? That’s the equivalent of my mom giving me Vladimir’s middle name. You’re setting your son up to fail.”

Rico shakes his head, dismissing my assumption. “You may have gone way off the tracks years ago, but you were a good kid before Vladimir ruined you.” His eyes bounce between mine before he mutters softly, “If only you had gotten out all those years ago.”

I stare at him, striving to work out how he knows I tried to leave when I was sixteen. I didn’t tell a soul of my desire to leave— well, except one man.

Like a freight train crashing into me, the truth dawns on me. “You’ve been in contact with Erik.” I’m not asking a question. I’m stating a fact. “You know he’s a snitch, right? He’s working with the FBI.”

He stares at me, his eyes revealing more than his mouth ever could.

“You fucking traitor!” I shout, my body heating up. “You better get back on your plane before I slit your snitching throat. A tattler can’t talk when he doesn’t have a tongue.”

When I step toward him, he doesn’t flinch. He stands his ground, his confidence way too pigheaded for my liking. “If I wanted to take you down, I could have done it years ago. I’m not here on behalf of the FBI.”

“Then why the fuck are you here?” I sneer, my words hissing from my mouth like venom. “If you’re hoping I’ll follow you back to the ’burbs and live in a house with a white picket fence and two point five kids, you’re barking up the wrong fucking tree.”

“I know. I don’t like it, but I understand. This is your life. You don’t know any different. But this isn’t about you, Nikolai. I’m here to ensure my son doesn’t live the life we did,” Rico answers, his voice growing alongside his anger. “I’m sick to death of looking over my shoulder every two seconds. I’m tired of hiding in the shadows, waiting for the day Vladimir arrives at my door to claim my son as his own. So, I’m here to do what the FBI won’t. I’m here to take Vladimir down. I’m taking back my life.”

He runs a hand over his clipped hair. “When I heard you were negotiating trades without Vladimir’s knowledge, I knew you were up to something. A man like Vladimir doesn’t retire. He’ll die protecting his throne before he’ll ever hand it over.”

“And your point is?” I ask, my tone cocky.

He doesn’t flinch at my roundabout way of saying I’m going to kill Vladimir. He takes it in stride, as if he too has dreamed of the day revenge will finally be served.

“Who is she?”

I glare at him, acting confused by his question.

It’s all a ploy.

I’m not confused. I know exactly who he’s talking about.

Rico never hid the fact his wife was his gift for years of misery, but he also knows if they had never met, he would have followed Vladimir to hell.

Just like me, he was born a mafia prince.

Unlike me, he won’t die a king.

Rico’s wife doesn’t have one-tenth of the intensity Justine has. She would have never survived in our world, so Rico did everything he could to keep her out of it instead of forcing her into it.

“That good?” Rico surmises, noticing the smirk I cannot hide when my thoughts stray to Justine.

“You got the kitten. I got the tiger,” I reply, my tone as smug as my grin.

A split in his top lip becomes apparent when he smirks, his fondness for his wife as strong as ever. “There’s nothing more provocative than the woman you love purring beneath you.”

I nod, not bothering to correct him on his insinuation that I’m in love with Justine.

To be honest, I don’t know what any of the weirdness I feel when I’m with Justine means, but I’m certain it isn’t love.

Well, I don’t think it is?

Rico laughs, seemingly amused.

“What the fuck are you laughing at?” I snarl, my voice so stern my accent is the thickest it’s been.

“Nothing. Come on.” Still laughing, he nudges his head to a door a few spaces from where we are standing. “Eli turned three last month. I haven’t slept a full night in over three years.”

“I don’t need sleep, Rico,” I inform him, following him to the concealed entrance.

“Who said anything about sleeping?” he questions, heading to a set of stairs on our left. “We need to sit down and devise a plan, or neither of us will get out of this alive. I don’t know about your missus, but if I don’t keep my word on returning to Kitten in one piece by the end of next week, mafia crossovers will seem like child’s play.”

“Blaire knows you’re here?” I ask, shadowing him up the first flight of stairs.

When he nods, I balk. Blaire has the purity of an angel. She’d blubber nonstop just at the thought of Rico breaking a nail, so I’m somewhat shocked she’s okay with his plan.

I’ve never seen a woman cry as much as Blaire did in the weeks following Rico’s supposed death. She’s either a good actor or had no clue about Rico’s intentions.

“Blaire’s a mother now, Nikolai. Nothing stands between a kitten and her cub,” Rico explains when he sees the confusion crossing my face. He stops climbing the stairs and spins around to face me. “She was also unaware of my plan. I knew you were watching her, so I had to make sure her grief looked real.”

“Once again, it wasn’t my choice.”

“I know,” he agrees, twisting his lips. “Doesn’t make me want to smash your teeth any less.”

“I’d like to see you try.”

He doesn’t reply to my statement. He heard the playfulness in my tone. We still have a long way to go, but this is the most we’ve communicated in over ten years. Although I don’t like reaching out for help, I could benefit from his unexpected arrival. Only one other man knows Vladimir as well as I do—he is standing in front of me.

“Is there any reason we can’t use the elevator?” I ask when we reach the thirteenth floor.

With my muscles still feeling the effects of the strenuous activities Justine and I undertook last night, I’m dreading every fucking step.

“We could, but considering Vladimir has access to every elevator camera in Vegas, I prefer taking the stairs.”

Rico’s confession stops me midstride. “Vladimir has access to every elevator camera? Since when?” I try to keep the worry out of my voice. My attempts are borderline.

He stalks down a long, dingy hallway while answering, “Since cameras were invented. Why do you think I always climb the stairs?”

“Sucker for punishment? Fucked if I know. I thought it was part of your fitness routine,” I answer, yanking my cell phone out of my pocket.

Laughing, he stabs a freshly cut key into a door and twists the lock. I finish compiling a message to the guy who handles my digital security, requesting he wipe any surveillance footage from Justine’s apartment the past week, before shadowing Rico inside the state-of-the-art apartment.

Damn.

From its outside appearance, you’d be none the wiser to the extravagance hiding behind the thick reinforced steel door. This property is pristine, putting the world’s most glamorous presidential suites to shame.

“Whose place is this?” I ask Rico, galloping down three stairs leading to a massive sunken living room.

I answer my own question when my eyes lock in on a set of shelves straddling a top-range open fireplace.

Anger overwhelms me, slicking my skin with sweat. “I am not a snitch. I’d rather die than work with the FBI.” I turn my eyes to Rico, their narrowed width leaving no doubt as to the fury raging through my veins. “Why the fuck did you bring me here?” My voice shakes with the anger I’m struggling to contain.

At first, I assumed this property was one of many Rico amassed in his early twenties, but when the photos of Erik and Rico began intermingling with law textbooks and service medals, the truth smacked into me.

This isn’t Rico’s property.

It is Erik’s crash pad.

“I don’t know how far you’ve gone down the rabbit hole, Rico. I’m hoping you used the FBI to escape Vladimir’s clutches, but if that isn’t the case, you know as well as I do that there is only one cure for rats. Extermination.”

He stands to his full height, bringing him an inch or two taller than me. Although he is larger than me, I don’t stand down. I can take him. I’ve got rage on my side. I’ve got grit. And I’ve also got my woman relying on me to bring her home sooner rather than later.

“How many times did Vladimir guarantee you that his last punishment would be the final punishment?” Rico asks, his tone flat and lifeless. “Or that just another year of service would be your final year? How often did he promise you freedom if you did one last task for him?”

I don’t need to answer his questions. He knows as well as I do how many broken promises Vladimir issued me during my childhood, as he was served just as many.

“The FBI is no different from the man they’re hunting. One more week… a month… a year. It never fucking ended.” I clench my fists when he admits, “I gave them enough intel on Vladimir he’d never breathe outside of prison walls again, yet it still wasn’t enough. They wanted more.” I keep my eyes focused on his inky-black gaze when he moves to stand in front of me. “I’m not here on behalf of the FBI. I’m here to do what I should have done years ago. I’m here to take Vladimir down.”

“Then why come here? Why bring me into the home of a man determined to take me down?”

Smirking, he showcases a side of him I haven’t seen in years. He points a small black remote over his left shoulder and hits a button.

Curious, I spin on my heels in the direction he is looking.

It feels like all my Christmases have come at once when my eyes drink in a wall of weapons. Tommy guns, Smith and Wesson, Colts, and brand-spanking-new Winchesters—you name it, the secret room Rico just unlocked has it.

Relishing my slack-jawed expression, Rico enters the space that smells like death and money all at the same time. He places a loaded Colt M1911 into the waistband of his trousers before loading the chamber of a dated Smith and Wesson.

“Do you even know how to fire one of those anymore?” I ask Rico, my tone brittle with laughter.

Blaire is a kindergarten teacher, so the closest weapon Rico has most likely touched in the past three years is an electric pencil sharpener. Although a correctly sharpened pencil can kill a man, Rico has always preferred clean kills over gory ones.

Smiling, he screws a silencer on the SIG Mosquito. I smirk when he aims the barrel at the crinkle between my brows. “Do you want an apple on my head? Or are you going in blind?”

Without hesitation, he pulls back on the trigger, sending a bullet whizzing toward my head. With only half an inch to spare, it hisses past the strands of hair curling around my ear before shattering a vase behind my shoulder.

“Does that answer your question?” he asks, his tone smug as fuck.

“Depends. Were you aiming for me or the vase?”

Laughing, he blows on the end of the barrel like the corny mafia movies we watched when we were kids. I have no doubt he loves his wife enough he’d never return to our lifestyle, but a twinkle in his eyes tells me he misses the adventure that came with his previous job description.

You can take a man out of the mafia, but you can’t take the mafia out of the man.

Nudging his head to a set of chairs on his left, Rico says, “We’ve got the weaponry. Now we just need a plan.”

“We?” I ask through arched brows.

He glances at me. His earlier amusement has vanished. “You know the way things work in this industry, Nikolai. No matter how badly you want to kill Vladimir, you can’t.” He sits in one of the chairs before adding, “That’s where I come in. You can’t accuse a ghost of murder.”

Veins pop in my neck as a wounded roar sounds from my mouth. “No, Rico. You’re not taking this from me,” I reply, shaking my head. “I’ve been waiting for this day my entire life. I’m not giving it up.”

“Alright,” he replies, shocking me with his blasé response.

Suburbia has made him soft. The Rico I used to know would never back down so easily.

The reasoning behind his nonchalant reply is exposed when he says, “You can kill Vladimir… but you’re gonna need to give up your girl first because you can’t have both items on your wish list.”

I clench my hands at my sides, fighting to keep from answering his words with my fists.

A deep crease furrows in Rico’s brow when he says, “If you break the rules of our industry, you not only put your head on the chopping block, you put anyone associated with you there as well. Once they get you, she’ll be kill number two. You know this, Nikolai. You’re just assuming the rules don’t apply to you. I hate to tell you, but the rules were created for guys like us. Otherwise, Vladimir would have been dethroned years ago.”

Blood pumps through me, kicking my heart into a frantic beat. Even knowing what he says is true doesn’t make it easier to hear. I promised to slit the throat of any man who dares look at Justine sideways, but that will be hard to maintain if I’m six feet under.

“Fuck!” I growl, angered about the next set of words prepared to leave my lips. Justine makes me unhinged, but I never thought she’d have me saying this…

My cell phone vibrates in my pocket before a syllable can leave my mouth. Hoping it is Justine, I dig it out. Disappointment surges through me when I peer down at the screen to see who is calling me. It is Asher.

“Asher, if this concerns the transfer of Vladimir’s account to me, it needs to wait. I’m snowed under,” I say in Russian.

Rico tries to show disinterest in my conversation. He’s a terrible actor. His lips quirked when I uttered Asher’s name, and his watchful gaze alerts me that he’s still fluent in Russian.

“This isn’t a business call,” Asher replies, his tone low for a man who usually exudes confidence by the bucketload.

I remain quiet, waiting for him to elaborate.

I consider Asher a friend, but our alliance does not entail calls out of the blue for no reason.

“It’s about Malvina,” Asher continues a short time later, leaving me long enough to stew on the reason for his call but not long enough to voice anger over his delay. “She didn’t fly back to Russia with Dominique. She said she had business to take care of before returning home.”

“What the fuck? Why are you only telling me this now?” I ask, glancing down at my watch to calculate how long Malvina has been left unattended in Vegas.

It’s been well over thirty-six hours.

“Dominique doesn’t understand Russian, and her English is poor. By the time I remembered Maya spoke French, an entire day had passed,” Asher explains, his tone remorseful.

I scrub the back of my hand over my eyes, unhappy but also understanding. Just like Maya, Dominique is of French heritage. She can barely understand a word of English, much less speak it.

A knot twists in my stomach when Asher adds, “That isn’t the worst of it. Malvina didn’t leave unattended. She was collected by?—”

“Vladimir,” we say at the same time.

I cuss under my breath as a barrage of disturbing thoughts bombard me. Malvina was spoiled by her father, making her a cold-hearted and vindictive bitch. She’s so used to getting what she wants that she threw everything she had at me when I walked her to the private jet myself just to make sure she got on the plane. Money, private dealings with her father—she even tried the dreaded “I’m pregnant” stint I’ve handled numerous times over the past ten years.

Nothing she could have said would have changed my mind, but her last ploy was the final nail in her coffin. I haven’t touched a hair on her head since we sealed our arrangement four years ago, so I knew every word spilling from her mouth was a lie.

Things turned physical when I called her out for the liar she is. She clawed at my neck while calling me every Russian cuss word under the sun.

When anger didn’t work, she resorted to tears.

Realizing my heart is as hard as hers, she finally took her seat while threatening retribution for the disrespect my rejection will cause to her family.

Although Andros was displeased when I contacted him upon leaving a private airstrip on the outskirts of Vegas, the cancellation of our engagement allowed him to secure a more beneficial arrangement with a Russian businessman he was knee-deep in negotiations with.

With Andros’s approval to end our engagement, I never put much thought into Malvina’s pledge for revenge.

Now I’m beginning to wonder if I’ve underestimated her.

Malvina reminds me a lot of my mother. She’d crawl over a bed of glass on her hands and knees if it guaranteed her more power and money than she already has.

She is the female equivalent of Vladimir.

“Thanks for the heads-up,” I say to Asher before disconnecting our call.

It’s the fight of my life not to slam my cell against the floor, but I hold the urge back— barely! This cell is the only communication I have with Justine and Roman, so as much as I’d like to take my anger out on it, I can’t.

“What’s going on?” Rico asks, reading the fury radiating out of me.

“Malvina…”

He grimaces, his memories of Malvina as sour as mine.

“I sent her back to Russia last night. Well, I thought I did. She slipped the net before the plane took off.”

Rico takes a moment to deliberate before asking, “And your girl, where is she?”

A bit of gratitude eases my anger. “On a plane to Hopeton.” Thank fuck .

“Have they met?”

My eyes stray to Rico. “Who? Malvina and Justine?” When he answers my question with a bow of his brow, I say, “Yeah. It didn’t go well.”

He smirks, reading the underlying message in my short reply. “And Vladimir and Justine? Have they met?”

I hold my hands out in front of my body, feigning innocence. “What’s with the twenty questions, Officer? Yes, they’ve met. A few more times than I’d fucking like.”

Rico takes my snooty attitude in stride, unaffected by my rapidly building anger. “Were you there when they met?” he continues to interrogate.

“Yes, but why does that matter?” You can’t miss the annoyed confusion in my tone.

He scrubs the back of his hand over his mouth, striving to hide his hard-set jaw.

It is a pointless effort. His eyes tell you he’s angry even when you can’t see his mouth.

“You’re a fucking idiot,” he growls under his breath, forcing my anger to an all-time high. “You wear pussy-whipped as well as every other male in the population. If Vladimir saw you with her, he knows why you sent Malvina packing. That won’t sit well with him. No woman can fracture the rightful order.” His words quiver at the end, the tic of his jaw too furious to contain.

I shake my head, denying his accusation. “I led Vladimir away from Justine’s scent. He has no clue what she means to me. I don’t have a clue what she means to me, so how the fuck would he know?” My last sentence is more of a personal reflection than an actual question.

Rico’s brow arches high, calling bullshit.

I return his glare, my desire to kill the greatest I’ve ever battled. Unlike Justine, being around Rico magnifies my drive to kill. It doesn’t suffocate it.

“You need to look at the entire picture, Eli,” he says, using my nickname on purpose, hoping it’ll lessen my anger. “Vladimir knows about Justine because he knows everything.” He waits for me to absorb the honesty in his eyes before asking, “Are you sure your girl is on a plane to Hopeton?”

An uneasy feeling spreads through my gut as I consider his question. I did everything but fly the plane to Russia, and Malvina still evaded me, so who’s to say Justine hasn’t done the same thing?

Ignoring how my hands have begun to shake, I dial Roman’s number. It rings on repeat, making my stomach queasy. I try to convince myself it doesn’t mean anything. Roman could have switched off his cell in preparation for takeoff, but the longer my calls go unanswered, the darker the cloud engulfing me becomes.

Pretending I can’t feel the fury burning me alive, I say, “It’s time.”

He nods, understanding my request without another word needing to spill from my lips.

It is time for Vladimir to pay his penance. It is time for justice to be served. It is time for this prince to take his crown.

An eye for an eye.

A life for a life.

A crown for a crown.

It’s finally time to take back what’s mine.