Page 151 of Nemesis

“I sent the love of my life back to his psychotic uncle for this family.” I gesture to the scar on my cheek. “It was your enemies who strapped me to a chair and tortured me for hours, not mine, so don’t tell me I’m too precious for your filthy family business. When I left this house days ago, covered in blood and gore, we were hopeless.”

“I didn’t mean it that way,” Ben mutters, lowering his eyes to the table. “I…” he trails off.

“You are my family.” I look up to the rest of the group. “You are the brothers I never had. But this man here,” I say, nodding to Ivan. “is my ally. Not yours. The designation is only relevant if you want to continue fighting my leadership.”

“I’ve had enough of this.” Alex drops his phone onto the table. “Yes, I kept your mother out of the business. That was her choice to make, just as I’ve given each of you a choice of involvement after you came of age. Your mother and I are a team, and we split our duties as we saw fit.”

His words remind me of that afternoon spent working in the garden before everything went to hell. Juliet said something similar about the role she chose, allowing her husband to protect her from the violence of this family. I suppose there’s no way to protect her from her son’s horrifying fate.

I will get him back.

She will get him back.

“But Octavia is Sasha’s heir,” Alex continues. “And this week, she did the impossible. Seventy-five men, Ben! That’s a fighting chance at getting your brother back, and you have the nerve to spit in her face? The boys I raised would never overlook a sacrifice like that.”

His defense is a bandage I press to my hidden wounds. I don’t know what else I can give to be enough for them. I don’t care about the Popov territory’s value or the small chance that Ivan will turn around and kill us all. If there’s something I can sell or gamble with to retrieve Kirill alive, I’ll hand it over without a second thought.

Ben opens his mouth, but before he can respond, a commotion pulls our attention to the front door.

My weapon is drawn before my next breath, and clicks echo throughout the room as everyone else does the same.

The door swings open. The first man through is unfamiliar, but I know he’s one of Ivan’s when the gun raised beside me tucks back into its holster.

“Report,” Ivan barks.

“A rogue got through the perimeter,” the new guy says. I tilt my head, trying to see what he’s holding in his hand.

“Tell me you kept him alive.”

“Negative,” the guy responds, stepping forward and setting the strange red bundle onto the table. “Morozov’s guys shot him down before I had a chance to intercede. But we found this on his body,” he says, gesturing to the object. “We think he was a messenger.”

“Christ.” Ivan shakes his head.

“I’ll deal with it.” Alex rises. “They should know better than shooting to kill.”

Ignoring them all, I push back my chair and walk over to the item. On first glance, it looks like garbage. An unassuming red piece of cloth wrapped into a small bundle. I approach slowly, half expecting a grenade to explode as soon as I touch it.

And, in a way, it does.

Because when I unwrap the stiff cloth, the fabric isn’t red at all. It’s stained.

And as it unfurls across the table, a small item falls loose, alongside a smeared note.

Alex gasps over my shoulder when I bend down to pick up the object, still wrapped in a gleaming, gold ring bearing our family’s crest.

The severed finger is cold to the touch. Revolting as it may be, I can’t bear to drop it. I don’t look away either. Somehow, that feels like a grave offense.

“A ring proves nothing,” Maksim says somewhere beside me, but there’s doubt in his tone.

Footsteps thunder across the floor as Alex storms out of the dining room. A door slams shut, rattling the frame.

But this ring proves everything. I can still see it glitter beneath the sunlight as he swung his knife, and I hear his cackling laugh when I’d dive into the grass to dodge the metal. It tapped against my first cigarette before the butt met my lips.

When I finally find the courage to set it down, it’s only to pick up the other item on the table. The note may be stained and damaged, but the parchment is expensive, with a printed signature already etched into the page.

Igor Popov.

I start reading from the top.