Page 77 of Marked By the Devil

“We have the manpower to protect some of them but not all,” Adrik replied.

“Paul’s been contacting the ones whose homes were listed.”

Alexei stood and paced, too, opposite of Adrik. Both of them were too mad to sit still. “If we knew all the men hired for this hit, we could take them out.”

I nodded. “At least those two were handled,” I reminded him. The spy hadn’t wasted time to knock them out and leave them for dead. They couldn’t go damaging our business or bombing anyone for this collaborative hit if they could barely hold their heads up or walk straight.

“Two out of how many, though?” Nikolai asked.

Too many.

“He’s upping the stakes. He’s escalating…” Adrik muttered something else but I didn’t catch it. “If he’s not still pissed that we eliminated his lieutenant, then he’s literally trying to break the empire apart. If he’s trying to get close to take the throne, why the fuck would he hit so hard at so many things that we rely on?”

“Who gives a fuck what Gregori is ultimately planning?” Lev scowled after he blurted that out. “He can’t win. He can’t get away with it. And we won’t fucking let him break us apart or be in the position to be overtaken. Whatever his plans are, we’ll stop them.”

“How?” Adrik asked, exasperated. There was no doubt he was the ruthless leader we needed him to be, but he still counted on us. We were a team of brothers and cousins and he never shied away from leaning on us. “He’s upping the challenges too quickly. Even with the help we’re getting from Wren and all the intel she’s been sourcing for us, we can’t stay one step ahead fast enough.”

“Since we foiled their last plan against us,” I said, referring to the law enforcement agencies who were setting up that road block to justify their excuse of killing some of our men, “they’re planning to hit even harder without any communications we can track.”

“There’s not a chance of diplomacy either,” Adrik said, hanging his head. “I keep asking myself what Father would do. How he would handle this…”

I wished I could know that answer too. Dmitri Volkov was a strong leader with a legacy of overcoming any odds, even his own brother trying to kill him.

Now as he lay upstairs, a shell of the mighty man he used to be, we had no easy answers from him. He had no guidance for us. Nothing like this had ever happened under his rule, and on that, I had to be grateful. He’d suffered enough damage from his brother. Gregori had almost killed him, and it had taken my father a long time to recover from the fallout. He’d spent years building us into the power we now were and it was up to us to defeat the same threat that had almost felled him.

“Diplomacy with who, though?” Nikolai asked. “The Feds?” He scoffed. “Like the ones who tried to bomb the car Wren took?”

“Not only Wren, but my wife, as well,” Adrik growled. “Lev’s wife.”

“No one is going to listen from that angle,” I said, shaking my head. “No one is even approachable now that they know Wren’s been working for us.”

“Diplomacy seldom works anyway,” Alexei groused. “Talking things out? Negotiating? Fuck that.”

“There isn’t anything to negotiate,” Adrik said. “What, we beg them not to hit us like this in exchange for what? I’m not giving anything to them. I’m not handing over a single fucking thing for what Gregori wants.”

I watched him pace some more, frustrated that we could be forced into a corner like this.

“The throne? Is that what he wants?” Adrik growled. “He can’t hire a hit to succeed in taking me out so now he needs to try to dismantle the whole fucking empire to force me into forfeiting the throne?” He slashed his arm through the air. “Fuck that. Fuck that. I’m not—” He growled again. “Fuck that. I keep asking myself what Father would do and it would never be to surrender. Never.”

Everyone stayed quiet. We let it sink in how grave of a situation this was getting to be, and I realized there was only one option.

“Then we fight. We fight and defend. The best we can.” I shrugged and despised the hopelessness that we faced. Not only because I needed to protect who and what we had now, but also because this would be one more step back and hindrance to getting the future that I was envisioning with Wren. One with peace that we could count on to start our family should she want to marry me, not because I forced her to live with me as my captive but because she might love me as much as I was coming to love her.

28

WREN

Elena dropped her head into her hands. A deep groan of worry came from her.

Carina strode from side to side, marching behind her as she held Isabel. A serious glower lined her face.

Mila lingered off to the side in this office space that Elena and I had shared.

I refused to let them bring me down. I typed and clicked, working as fast as I could to check the inter-office messaging program that I still had hacked access to.

“There are no good options,” Elena said.

We’d of course heard about the collaborative attack planned against us. The clubs and restaurants, bars, stores. Those could be closed up, and hopefully they could be protected, but the Bratva would be spread thin. The homes of the leaders and the spies that were on the long hit list would be harder to protect.