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I get to my feet. “I have no personal shit. I have this Bratva and this family—that’s it.”
“And if it came down to a choice?”
That takes me back. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“If you had to choose between her and us, what would you do?”
I glare at him furiously. “Is that an actual question or are you just trying to piss me off now?”
“Given how you’ve been behaving lately—”
“I wouldneverpick anything or anyone else over this family. I swore to protect Lev and Polly and that is what I will do until the last breath leaves my body. You may doubt everything else I say and do, but never doubt that.”
Nikolai’s eyes flash but in the end, he nods. “Alright, brother. Noted.”
I stalk over to the window, wondering why he hasn’t gotten the fuck out of my office yet. Surely he can see that I need some space.
“There is something else,” comes his voice from behind me.
I close my eyes and sigh.Of course there is.“Tell me.”
Nikolai pulls up the file he carried in here nearly an hour ago and slides it across the table towards me. “Igor’s body showed up last night.”
Fuck.
I don’t hesitate to open the file. I’m expecting bad—but what I’m faced with is downright gory. It’s fucking inhuman what Sobakin’s animals did to Igor’s body. I only hope that he died before the worst of it.
“A clean death was all that was necessary to get his point across,” Nikolai says with an audible grimace. “They mutilated his corpse to send a message.”
“Well, then we need to send them a message of our own.”
Nikolai gets up and walks over to the locked drawer that holds reports that I haven’t combed through in over a year. It’s not because I’m uninterested—it’s because I’ve memorized every single word on every single page.
“There are too many unanswered questions, Uri,” he muses as he punches in the lock code, opens the drawer, and starts leafing through the folders. “We both know that. It’s all right there in black and white.”
“I haven’t forgotten.”
His lips tighten like he’s trying to keep more words from spilling out. “No. Neither have I.”
Our eyes meet and, in our shared anger and our shared grief, everything else is stripped away and I’m able to see my brother.
“His days are numbered. I promise you that.”
Nikolai shakes his head. “I don’t want promises. I want action. I want fuckingrevenge.”
I haven’t opened the drawer in a long time. Seeing Igor’s body makes me realize that I need to dive in again. I need to remind myself of why I’m here and why I’m doing all of this.
Just like Nikolai…
I need revenge.
41
URI
“How was your day, Lev?”
It’s the third time Polina has asked and I have a feeling she won’t stop until she gets a response out of him.
