Page 55 of Marked By the Devil

She made a noise. “He’s got their attention, you can say that.”

“But who is he?” I sighed, rubbing a kink in my neck. “I haven’t heard of him or seen evidence of his money trails in the years that I worked in the fraud division.”

“He’s someone who has a vested interest in attacking the Bratva,” she explained. “Even if he weren’t, he needs to be stopped. Just skim through this folder and make your own judgment. Those are all videos and photos taken from the crime scenes of hits and destruction we have evidence of him ordering.”

She’d piqued my interest, but after an hour of browsing through the contents of the folder she’d sent me, I was sickened. Disgusted. Horrified.

“Mila was captured at that camp, by the way.”

I shook my head at her comment. Maybe that was why the woman was so quiet.

“Damn…” I blew out a deep breath, feeling like I was recharged and fully distracted from the fact that I’d almost been killed.

I told Viktor that I’d regret dying and not doing my best with the time that I had to make the world a better place. Seeing what Gregori was up to motivated me even more.

Assess. Ascertain. And act.

I was going to apply that alliterative slogan now as I dove right back into seeing what connections I could unearth about what this network was designed to do—and maybe I’d find out why the Volkov Bratva was the target of their ire.

19

VIKTOR

Alexei and I came back after another day of trying to find out who had placed that hit on Adrik. I had a vested interest in the matter because I hoped to also find out if that was the same sniper who took a shot at Wren.

But so far, nothing was helping. Every lead we had turned out to be nothing. No matter who we talked to, no one would own up to actually putting a hit on my brother.

“Why would I bother?” one of the Cartel bosses said when we were led to them. “If we killed him, there’s still how many more of you?”

That was true. If anyone wanted to overthrow the Volkov Bratva leadership, there would be a line to wait behind. The throne went from father to son, and if that was done, it went to brothers. I was fourth in line. Alexei, as a cousin, would be sixth. When Gregori killed our grandfather, the throne went to Dmitri, the eldest son. And since Adrik was an adult, he would take the throne once our father passed away, which shouldn’t be too much longer, according to the doctors.

“It makes me wonder what the fuck he’s trying to do,” Alexei said as I drove him back to his house after another long day of dead ends.

“Gregori?” I asked.

“Who the hell else?” he replied.

I shrugged.

“I can’t talk about him with Lev,” he said. “He gets too emotional and pissed off.”

“He does.” And I said that with love. Lev was very close to my father, and I knew that he was extra sensitive about Gregori even being on our radar. He loathed him. We all did.

“But he seems hooked on the idea that he’s trying to take the throne.”

“He’s not the only one who thinks that,” I reminded him.

“It’s fucking bullshit,” he protested. “To take out all four of you?” He shook his head.

“Until we can get a location on him and figure out who’d been handling things for him since we had Yusef Antonov killed…” He let out a deep breath as I pulled up at his house. “We’ll never know.”

“That’s why I’m glad that Adrik is open to letting Wren work for us. Maybe one of the agents who have been bought off can reveal something useful to us.”

He rolled his head on the headrest before getting out. “You think she’ll find anything?”

“Now that Trojan helped her get access to their inter-office messaging program, hopefully.” I left him with that and headed home to find my secret agent. My redhead.

I wasn’t surprised that she was still working hard. A few days ago, before she’d hit one month of being mine, she asked Elena if she could bring a laptop with her to my house to continue working on finding whatever she could about the link between the corrupt agents and Gregori. Armed with a laptop and all the access that Trojan could arrange for her, she would often work late into the night when I was too busy to be near her.