Twisted Throne (Bratva Born #2)

15. Dimitri

Dimitri

Something tickles my nose, and I breathe in Adriana’s scent. She’s here, with me, at last. I hold her closer.

What woke me? Then I realize. A sense of urgency. We aren’t safe here, not if we get a travel ban and the British cops or security services try to make us stay to interrogate us. We need to leave. I want to be on the jet back to America in a few hours. Jacob was sorting the plane out, but they had a delay in their slot, hence us having more time here than I’d liked, but I shouldn’t have fallen asleep that way. I need to make sure we have a go time now.

I message Yuri and tell him to ensure the security level at the compound is at high alert. This is followed by a message to the pilots, asking them to get ready for us to return as fast as they can and to let me know the ETA as soon as they have it. Then I slip into some sweatpants and pull a T-shirt over my head, grabbing my cell and the burner I’m using right now.

Everything has changed so much. My world has shattered and fractured and knitted itself together in a new way. The same but not quite the same, like a bone after a break. They say that broken bones can grow back stronger, their new calcium binding to make a deeper strength, and I feel that way.

Before, I was half whole. I believed I couldn’t be the things most women would want. I couldn’t be a husband, or a father, ever . I had evil in my blood. My genes were bad, and I couldn’t pass that on. It didn’t matter before because I hadn’t met anyone who made me yearn for those things, until I saw a girl tied to a bed with a bluebird tattoo on her shoulder. She started the fracture within me, and finding out the truth from my mother completed it.

It can be painful when we repair something broken, and opening my heart makes me hurt in ways I haven't experienced before. I look at Adriana and feel fear tightening my chest. Fear that someone will take her again. Fear she might get hurt. Fear she’ll find me lacking and leave.

I’m not a coward, though, and now I know that I don’t present a danger to my future wife and child, I’ll face down these fears and defeat them, the way I’ve done with every other terror in my life.

Not wanting to disturb her, until I must, I decide to go and grab a coffee while I wait to hear about the flight schedules. I pad into the bar, knowing there’s a coffee maker in here somewhere, and stop short when I see Andrius sitting at a table. His knuckles are torn, and he has blood on his shirt. The man dresses like he’s on the front of GQ even to beat on people.

“Coffee?” I ask.

He shakes his head. “I’m already on my second.”

“You won’t sleep,” I observe.

“Don’t intend to. This second coffee, a cold shower, and then I want to be heading home to my Zaika. I don’t like to leave her for too long.”

“Your wife?” I ask. “Violet?”

“Yes. Speaking of heading home, how long until you’re out of here?”

“Working on it, relying on time slots is a thing, even with a private jet.”

He sighs but nods.

I figure out the pod machine on the bar. This is for guests of the club to make their own coffee if they wish, but they can order fancy ones too, from the waitresses when the bar is open. I saw the drinks menu. They have over a hundred different whiskies alone.

Once I have the coffee, I go sit opposite him, yawning. “So what’s happening with Barnaby?” I ask.

“We could do with a chat before I leave. Let me call Damen down.” Andrius places a call, and a few minutes later, a bleary eyed, tousle-haired Damen stalks into the room. “Could have let me sleep, fuckers. Barely had any.”

“I want to get back to Corfu,” Andrius says. “I’ll sleep on the flight.”

Damen grabs a bottle of water from behind the bar and comes to sit with us. “What’s the situation?” he asks. “How do we deal with the loose end that is Barnaby? Take him with us, to carry on the interrogation before we kill him?”

“Barnaby is not a loose end,” Andrius says. “He’s not an anything anymore.” He looks at me. “I made it hurt.”

I glance again at his hands and the blood on his shirt.

“Thought you wanted him alive?” I ask. “To interrogate.”

“I have interrogated him.”

“But he was off his fucking head,” Damen says.

“You know that Brugmansia is a member of the nightshade family, right?” Andrius asks.

Damen shakes his head.

Andrius looks at me with a wry smile. “Your woman poisoned that bastard with plants that have a compound in them used as a truth serum. Whether or not it works that way is debatable, but it certainly makes people talkative. So, he talked. A lot. I also had a chat with Tom. He needed a little persuading to share everything.” He glances down at his hands and stretches the fingers before clenching them into fists. “He has no loyalty to Barnaby but didn’t want to confess his own crimes. However, with a little physical persuasion, he soon spilled his guts … and Barnaby gave me the code to the office safe. The password to his computer. His alias in the dark web groups, and the passwords to all of those.”

He reaches into his pants pocket and takes out his phone. He screenshots something and sends it to Damen. “That’s all the information I got. I’ve already passed it onto Reece, and he’s in the groups right now, acting as Barnaby. It’s solid. It means we can find the men running this auction. It also should help you guys take down the arms dealers.”

He glances at me. “What’s a good number to send this to?”

I give him the number of my current burner, and he sends the info. It beeps in my pocket.

“This information means you can clean up any of these fuckers left in your territory. It all leads back to a powerful group of men, from five nations, who call themselves the Kyrios.”

Damen snorts. “Really? They use Greek?”

“What does it mean?” I ask.

“Lords, masters, that kind of thing,” Damen explains.

“This goes deep,” Andrius says. “There are members from all over the world, but the men running this, the Kyrios, are from Britain, Germany, Saudi Arabia, America, and France.”

I sip at the bitter coffee and sigh. “So an entire global web of perverted fuckers.”

“Yes, but not for long.” Andrius smiles.

Damen pinches the bridge of his nose. “You really want to get involved in another war?”

“Oh, I’m not going to war. That implies two sides fighting. I’m going to gather myself a little group of assassins, and these men will all be taken out in their sleep. There isn’t any way to make oneself completely safe, and these men will find that out soon enough. There’s a woman I know, from back in the day, and she specializes in very artful and creative ways of reaching untouchables.”

“She won’t be cheap,” I point out.

“Oh, she’s not. At least five million for a job, but for me?” Andrius grins. “She’ll do it for free.”

“Why?” I ask.

“Because she owes me, and she hates these fuckers as much as I do.”

I nod, asking no more. I don’t want to know her name, and he’s not going to share it.

Andrius sighs. “Now that Barnaby is no longer of this mortal coil, we can leave.”

Damen’s brows draw down. “He’s a big fish in this pond. I agree, we should all be leaving ASAP.”

“Indeed. There’s no trace to us.” Andrius rubs his jaw. “I’m very good at wet work, but we’ve all been seen at various times in his vicinity. I doubt any direct link could be made, but I don’t want to stick around and find out.”

“Except for Tom. Barnaby’s other staff, and anyone who might talk.” Damen makes a valid point.

“None of the Volkov’s will talk; they are as neck deep in this as we are,” I say.

“Yep.” Andrius nods. “The men who worked for Barnaby are taken care of too. As in, they are no longer an issue, except for Tom. He’s coming back to Corfu with me because he’s a font of information.”

“I thought you’d have taken Barnaby back,” Damen says. “Worked him over for a few months before keeping your promise to Dimitri, why the abrupt end for him?”

“One of the Vs, Viktor I think, was going through the daughter’s things,” Andrius says. “He found a diary.” His face tightens. “She wrote a lot in that diary about her father. His obsession with this painting and her desire to find the woman in it. She didn’t feel that way for no reason.” He fixes us with his gaze, flicking between each of us as he shares the next bit. “Sian wanted to find that woman so that she could stop her own abuse.”

“ What ?” Damen says.

“Yes.” Andrius scrubs a hand over his face. “Barnaby was grooming her. From what Viktor read, and he only skimmed it, Barnaby didn’t actually touch her, but he was leading up to it. Making her uncomfortable, doing things that crossed the father daughter line, and including her in some of the sick parties he had. Sian was desperate for her father to find someone and fall in love. She thought the parties would stop. She thought he’d be happy and go back to being the father she knew when her mother was alive.”

“He killed her mother.”

I jump at the voice behind me and turn to see Adriana. She’s wearing my T-shirt and a pair of track pants that drown her.

“He killed her. He told me. Confessed it.” She shakes her head and comes to me, sitting on my knee as if it’s as natural to her as breathing.

My arms wrap around her, and I hold her tight.

“You say he was hurting Sian?” Her voice is small.

“Not outright, but it was fucked up,” Andrius says.

“I hate him,” she whispers.

Andrius reaches into his pocket and takes something out. It’s a ring. He hands it to Adriana. “He’s dead,” he says.

She takes the ring and turns it over in her hands. “Thank you,” she whispers. She shows me the ring. “This was in his family for over five hundred years,” she says. “I think Sian should have it. I don’t want to speak to her again, even though now I understand her a bit more. It’s too raw. What could we say? But I want to know she’ll be okay.” She hands the ring back to Andrius.

“We’ll take care of her.” He nods. “It can’t be openly linked to us, but we’ll get some people in place to offer her support. She’s going to be a very wealthy young woman. She’s not going to be left with nothing in life.”

“She won’t have family, though,” Adriana whispers.

My burner buzzes again. This isn’t from Andrius, so I take it out of my pocket and read the message. It’s from Yuri.

Found Adriana’s father and Hana. In a hotel room in Carmel. Hana made up some lie and left Cade with the grandparents so Ari could take them. The father is a mess, drunk, confused. Their cards were maxed out, things got ugly, police were called. We got a heads-up from some friendly officers, and we’ve sent two men to pick them up.

A second message follows hot on its heels.

Also, boss, not sure how long Ari is going to last down there. Should I take him out for a bit? If you want him alive .

I type back and then turn to Andrius. “Thank you for everything. You guys ever need any weapons, it’s on me. Free. Whatever you need, within reason. I don’t have any spare fighter jets I can hand over.”

Andrius chuckles. “That’s good to know. You ever want a holiday, our place is open to you.”

“You know, maybe Sian could go there?” Damen says. “There wouldn’t need to be any reason to tie what happened to her father with any of you, but perhaps if someone can pass on Roze’s details to her, she could at least have the option of joining one of the courses. I know she’s done wrong, but she was badly fucking messed up by that bastard, her father.”

Andrius nods. “I’ll think about it. Talk with Priest.”

I put Adriana down and stand, taking her hand. “Damen, same goes for you. Anything we can ever do to help, just call.”

“Is your father okay?” Damen asks.

I experience a jolt of awareness that really, despite coming into my life late, Jacob truly is my father in every sense that matters. “Why?” I ask.

“He looked pale and tired,” Damen says.

“Yeah, I think I’m going to persuade him to see the doctor when we get home.”

We all say our goodbyes, and I lead Adriana out of the room. When we get back to our temporary sleeping quarters, I turn to her. “They’ve found your father and Hana. They’re both safe, and Yuri has sent some men to pick them up.”

She sags a little, and I guide her to the edge of the bed. “Thank God my father is safe. Still, I’m not sure how I feel about seeing him.”

I understand that and wish I could make it easier for her.

“I can’t wait to see Cade,” she says and forces a brave smile on her face.

“Come on. Let’s get packed and ready to leave. We aren’t safe here with Barnaby dead. It’s best for the Volkovs too if we’re gone.”

She nods and stands, her spine straight and strong and begins to pack.