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“I will decide when this is all over,” I tell them. “Right now, I need everyone to help me find Isabella and ensure my family is safe.”
“Yes, Andrey,” Urie and Sasha say in unison.
“I’m sorry about your father.” Urie says.
“Thank you, Urie,” I say, not quite sure how to treat my life-long best friend now. I push the problem aside and turn to Konstantin.
“Explain what Lev’s plans were.”
“Your brother had a few backup plans when he realized that my mother had made Roman choose you for Isabella and Pakhan,” Konstantin replied. “According to your great-grandfather’s law, the first Belov sibling to be married and have an heir became Pakhan.”
“Jesus, I thought my father did away with that shit,” I assure him.
“No, your grandfather wouldn’t let him and then Roman and Karla enforced it,” Konstantin corrects me. “Lev chose Stacy because, apparently, she’s as big a psycho as your brother, and the two of them have been fucking since she was a teenager.”
“No way!” My brow furrows. “I’m sure Isabella told you Stacy’s life story, and the two of them have been friends since they were kids—Isabella would’ve known if Stacy was crazy.”
“Stacy has done nothing but use and manipulate Isabella since they were kids.” Konstantin’s voice is laced with anger. “None of the shit that she told us about being abused as a kid by her brother, et cetera, was entirely true.”
“She played everyone,” Urie clarified. “Your brother took great pleasure in telling us everything in detail, then gave us a demonstration of how life was going to treat Isabella after her brats were born. He uh…“ His eyes darken.
“He raped Hannah in front of us and forced Urie and me to watch before beating her unconscious as punishment for what Urie did to him a year ago,” Konstantin tells me. His eyes darken with warning once again as he steps closer to Urie. “So! I won’t let you harm a hair on Urie’s or Hannah’s head.”
Urie’s eyes meet mine, and I can see how haunted they are. What do you say to someone when your brother has just done something as heinous as that to one of their family members?
“Urie, I have no words,” I tell him. “But, I agree with Konstantin. There’s no way I can punish you for that. Especially after what Lev has done to you and my father. It’s my brother that owes your sister.”
“Thank you, Andrey,” Urie says. “I’m going to check on Marco and Hannah.”
“I’ll come with you,” Sasha says, leaving Konstantin and me alone.
“So all this shit was orchestrated by my brother so he can be the Belov Pakhan?”
“No, your brother’s thinking a lot bigger than that. Lev wants the kingdom that your father was envisioning,“ Konstantin answers. “But we’re all in his way. He wants Isabella as she is the bridge to opening up alliances between the most powerful Bratva families in Europe, Canada, and America.” His jaw clenches for a second. “He wants to be the king that would make the Belov organization one of the largest in the world. Lev can then expand operations in Europe, Central, South, and North America.”
“I know you have every right to want to be the one to take my brother’s life…” I have no idea why I’m even trying to plead my brother’s case—Isabella must be rubbing off on me. My heart lurches and anger bubbles thinking about my missing wife. “But is there any way you’d think of some other punishment?”
“No!” Konstantin shakes his head. “My father will take his revenge on your brother and will also pay for helping Ivan kidnap me.”
“Jesus!” I run my hand through my hair and guess my brother’s intentions, “Now Lev is going to try to pin the containers on me so I’ll meet the same fate as our uncle Grigory. Then Lev will swoop in and save Isabella, then trap her until the twins are born.”
“That’s his plan,” Konstantin confirms. “Then he’ll raise your twins he refers to as the brats as his own, keeping them alive purely to secure his throne.”
“Which means I’m next on his hit list,” I guess. “As I’m a contender to his throne and he knows that I’ll never let him take my kids or Isabella.”
“Yes.” Konstantin nods. “Your brother feels loyalty to no one.”
“That’s fucking cold, even for us,” I say and frown. “The only thing I don’t understand is… why did my brother kill his own baby?”
“He didn’t, but there is no time to get into that now,” Konstantin tells me. “What’s important is that your brother had hired men to attack him and make it look like it was Marco and Ivan. He messaged me pretending to be your mother worried about his safety, so I’d save him. He knew that if I thought my father or yours were trying to kill us, I’d take him to Russia to hide him.”
“While he was away he started expanding his territory to make it look like it was us,” I add. “I just don’t understand why he’d kill Valentina?”
Konstantin’s eyes harden with hatred. “Because he knew something I only found out after giving a few pints of my blood to save Lev’s life that night.”
My brow furrows at his words and alarm bells echo through my brain. “That was…”
“Lev and I share a rare blood group.” Konstantin watches me with raised brows as words sink in. “No one in my family has that blood group. I was also supposedly born two months premature.”
