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Now the adrenaline from shock spurts through me. Fuck! “With our organization and Marco’s, he’ll be a fucking Titan.”
Now my mind’s reeling and thinking Konstantin was the one behind the containers and the hacking. Then it hits me. The hackers were looking for the bio key file of all my mother’s special Velvet Transport clients. That’s all he needs to close down my mother’s company for good.
I had heard rumors that Roman had bought the European half of Velvet Transport when my mother’s brother had died eighteen years ago. Jesus! It dawns on me. This hasn’t been about a twenty-nine-year-old feud. It’s about a cold heart fucker wanting his revenge on his father and mine while amassing a huge organization—complete with a lethal special forces team and super drug.
Of course, he doesn’t need my heirs. Konstantin is a Zhukov, Andreev, and Moretti, with Isabella just married to me, and none of my family left… Fuck! I run my hands through my hair as fury erupts within me. Konstantin has neatly herded us in the direction he wanted us to go. The twenty-nine-year-old feud and my father paying a debt to the Zhukovs and Andreevs was a smoke screen, and my marriage to Isabella was one of that fuckers backup plans.
“Andrey?” Lev’s voice snaps me out of my thoughts.
“I’m here,” I bark. “Look, Isabella and I will go back to Boston. We can all meet there and regroup to take Konstantin down.”
“NO!” Lev shouts with an urgency that makes me scowl. “No.” He says a little calmer. “You can’t. Everyone’s been trying without fail to find out who the fuck this messenger is. Only Isabella can lead us to him, and it might be the only way to stop Konstantin because whatever the messenger has for her is really important to him.”
“You’re right,” I agree with Lev. “We’ll continue on the journey.”
“Brother, when you get to the final town before the Alaskan border, you need to send me the address that is given to Isabella,” Lev tells me. “Once I… we have that, Marco will give the address of a safe house to get yourself and Isabella to so you can wait for us.”
“Okay, brother,” I say, and a nagging doubt starts to claw at me. “I must go before Isabella gets suspicious. Keep safe.”
“You too, brother,” Lev says. “And don’t trust anyone!”
I hang up, and my mind reels. What the fuck? Going over the past weeks in mind, Lev is probably right.
Whoever’s behind this has always been one step ahead of us. That’s because they weren’t a step ahead of us—we were being maneuvered.
And who else could pull off such tactics with military precision than a highly trained Zhukov Special Forces leader?
I’m about to leave the bathroom when my phone rings. I look at it, and my eyes widen when I see the name—Mother New. I feel a renewed cold feeling of shock wash over me—I hadn’t even realized Lev had phoned me from my mother’s old phone.
The phone that was stolen from my mother a year ago. My father had gotten her a whole new number and phone—I can remember thinking that it was strange to replace everything at the time. Now, I think it was for more sinister reasons.
Chapter 17
ANDREY
“Mom? How are you?” It all comes out in one breath.
“Andrey?” My mother’s voice lowers. “I’m as well as can be expected. Where are you, sweetheart?”
“I’ve had some things to take care of, so I had to get out of town for a while.”
“You could’ve let me know,” my mother tells me. “I’ve been out of my mind with worry for you.” She pauses. “When are you coming home? There are urgent things we need to talk about.”
“Like?” My brow furrows.
“Not over the phone.” Her voice is curt. “Where are you?” Another pause. “Wait! Don’t tell me.”
I hear a noise coming from her side of the phone, and I freeze as I hear someone with a heavy Russian accent say something I can’t quite pick up. My mother answers in Russian. “Dai mne pyat’ minut.”
Give me five minutes. “Mom? Who is there with you?”
“A friend,” my mother hedges.
“How is Dad?”
“Still the same,” my mother tells me, her voice soft and hoarse. There’s a heavy silence before she speaks again, shakier this time. “Andrey, the doctors say he is brain dead.”
“What?” My brows crease, and my heart thuds. Jesus, I don’t think I can take any more bad news at the moment. “I’m sorry, Mom.”
