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“According to my intel, their jet left an hour ago, the flight schedule that was submitted said they were traveling to America,” Lev says, still grinning.
“Hey, if he’s dead, it means you don’t need me anymore. Right?” I ask.
“Oh, Baby, that’s where you’re wrong, him being dead is exactly why we need you.” Vik laughs, his face twisting into a joker style smile that makes me shiver in response.
“Let me tell you a story,” Dimitri says. “Once upon a time there were several families, who all lived and worked together. Instead of one person being in charge, the oldest male relative of each family formed a council of sorts, working together and sharing the money and power they amassed. For generations, the families prospered, powerful, wealthy, and feared by those that thought to oppose them. Then one family got greedy, they didn’t want to share the money and influence all the families together had gained. The oldest male decided that one ruler would be better and he and his descendants prayed on the weaker families, convincing them that he alone should be the king, the ruler, the Pakhan.”
As Dimitri speaks, the smiles slide from the guys’ faces, replaced with angry scowls.
“We were five, when our families were forced to leave the homes we’d lived in for generations and flee to America to start our lives anew. The Pakhan exiled our families and forbade them from ever returning to Mother Russia, the land that was their birthright. Our grandfathers and fathers before us sought revenge, wanting to reclaim the thrones that were theirs by right. But they failed at every turn, because the Pakhan and his Avtoritets had become even more powerful and deadly, until they were almost untouchable.
“Lev, Vik, and I could have chosen a life seeking revenge, but we decided not to. Instead, we focused on succeeding, in forging our own paths; finding our own power and wealth. But once we were rich and powerful, we lost interest in business and control and instead searched for mayhem and destruction for a while. Three years ago, we’d grown bored of chaos and while we were searching for something new to keep our interest, we found you.”
Swallowing thickly, I shake my head.
Scoffing lightly, Lev starts to talk. “You were seventeen, just a few months off turning eighteen and graduating high school. I only saw you twice, but you were different back then. Softer, less wary. We knew who you were, but your aunt helped us. She took you to a clinic and we tested your blood against your father’s to make sure you really were his child. Then before we had a chance to bring you here, you disappeared, gone in the blink of an eye.”
“We searched for you for over a year, but it was like you just vanished. You never went back to school, never used your cell, never called or visited your aunt or any of your friends again. You just ceased to exist. Until a year ago,” Vik says, making goosebumps pebble across my skin.
“Then you just popped up one day, working and living in Columbus. We’ve been watching you ever since.” Dimitri smiles at me, a cunning, terrifying smile.
“Why?” I breathe, the sound barely audible.
“When we first started watching, I don’t think we really knew what we were going to do with you,” Lev admits.
“But once we started, we couldn’t stop.” Viktor smirks.
“Then we found out your father was dying,” Dimitri says. “The laws he put in place say that his crown would pass to any male heir he produced. But he never had a son. He had several wives, but he never had any children, except for you.”
“But I’m a girl,” I whisper.
“Yes, you are,” Viktor says, licking his lips lasciviously.
“Do you know what else the rules your father wrote say?” Dimitri asks, then answers before I have a chance to tell him that I don’t want to know any more at all, that I want him to stop talking and let me go.
“They say that if there’s only a female heir, the crown passes to her husband.”
“So, this is about you wanting this metaphorical crown?” I ask, confused.
“No, Ali, we don’t want the crown,” Viktor says.
Lev shakes his head, his eyes not the calm they’ve been since I woke up, but a crazed maniac hellbent on destruction. “We want to destroy it all.”
CHAPTER 13
lev
Alabama’s eyes go wide, then something shutters over them and she closes herself off, a blank mask sliding over her face that dulls her emotions and thoughts down to an expression I’ve never seen before on her.
“So, you kidnapped me and created this fake marriage, so that you could dangle me on a carrot to the crazy Russian Mafia people and have them think that I’m their boss’s sole surviving heir? Then what, you plan to just stroll into Mafia HQ and blow the place to smithereens?”
“In the most basic terms, yes.” I nod.
“I’m from the ass back end of fucking nowhere Georgia and even I know that’s a stupid fucking idea. Do you seriously think they’re going to just let the sons of the men they kicked out of their little boys club and exiled from an entire fucking country just take over, because of some stupid clause written into an antiquated Mafia handbook? If the dude’s dead, whoever has taken over will either write their own rules, or they’ll already have covered the bases to make sure that some bastard kid of a whore the dead guy fucked can’t walk in and lay claim to the castle. I mean, seriously, did you put any thought into this plan at all?”
It’s bizarre to watch her spit angry vitriol at us, without even an ounce of emotion on her face. But even though I don’t like this blank version of her, I can’t help smiling at the patronizing words that are falling from her lips.
“Your father found out he was dying about three weeks ago. Whenever he had a significant victory, he would always raise a glass to himself to celebrate his own impressiveness. His love of expensive whiskey is well known and when a bottle of the infamous Macallan 1926 was put up for auction, he couldn’t resist, spending over a million dollars to own one of only forty bottles of this particular blend that was ever made. What he didn’t know is that the lethal poison Polonium was injected into that particular bottle, making it both his prize and his downfall,” Dimitri says, smiling wistfully. “When he opened that bottle to celebrate how brilliant he was, he sealed his own fate. Polonium is the perfect killer, because by the time you figure out what’s wrong with you, it’s too late, there’s no cure, only an agonizing death.”
