Page 80 of My Wedding Night Massacre

Then she looked at me, and my body woke up like someone hit me with a defibrillator.

Christ.

I thought that part of me was dead.

Turns out it was just waiting for the right fucking trigger.

"Boss?" Viktor's watching me. "You good?"

"Fine." I pull my thoughts back, force them into order. "What else?"

He hesitates. Glances at Sergei, who suddenly finds the floor very interesting.

"What?" My voice drops, and the temperature in the room drops with it.

Viktor reaches into his jacket, pulls out a manila folder. Slides it across the table like it might explode. "You're not gonna like this."

I open it.

Photos. Reports. Bank statements. My jaw tightens with every page I turn.

Leo.

My son. The boy I gave everything to, the boy I’ve tried to mold into something worthy of the Santego name.

Drunk at clubs. Fighting in the streets. Throwing money around like it's confetti. One photo shows him stumbling out of a casino at 4 AM, supported by two women who look like they charge by the hour. Another shows him screaming at one of our soldiers, face red, finger jabbed in the man's chest.

The bank statements are worse. He's bleeding money. Gambling debts. Designer clothes. Cars he’s crashed within a month of acquiring them. In the past seven years, he's burned through millions of dollars of family money like it's nothing.

"How long has this been going on?" My voice is quiet. The dangerous kind of quiet.

"About... six years," Viktor admits. "Started about a year after you went in. We tried to control it, boss, but he's your—he's Leo. He pulls rank, says you left him in charge of his own affairs."

"I left him with an allowance and explicit instructions to finish school and stay out of trouble."

"Yeah, well." Sergei shifts. "Kid's got your last name. Thinks that makes him untouchable."

I flip to the last page. It's a police report. Assault charges. Dropped, of course, because we own half the department. But the details make my blood boil.

Leo tried to force himself on some girl at a party. When she fought back, he hit her. Hard enough to split her lip, bruise her ribs. She had him arrested. He bribed his way out within four hours.

"The girl," I tap the report. "She pressed charges?"

"Tried to," Viktor says. "We made it go away. Figured it was better to handle it quietly."

"Paid her off?"

"Tried. She wouldn't take the money. Wanted him in jail." Viktor shrugs. "But without her testimony, the case fell apart."

Something about that sits wrong in my gut. A girl who wouldn't take money, who wanted justice instead.

Who is she?

"Where the fuck is Leo now?" I close the folder, fighting the urge to punch the table.

"His penthouse. Probably sleeping off whatever he took last night."

"Get him up. I want him in my office tomorrow morning, eight sharp. And if he's late, fucking drag him there in whatever state he's in."