Page 37 of Shattered Empire (Shattered World)

“Which one?”

“Platinum Security.”

Vas’s smile dripped with malicious intent, his eyes flashing dangerously.

“Excellent,” he crowed. “I’ve been needing a reason to take them down.”

“Would you like to fill me in?”

Vas’s smile dropped.

“Well…”

Liam barked a laugh. “You didn’t tell her, did you?”

“Tell me what?” Why the hell did I always feel like I was out of the loop on everything?

“Um…”

“Start talking, you hippie haired Russian,” I snarled.

“Platinum Security is our firm’s greatest rival in the security industry.”

“Our firm?”

“Yeah…” Vas hesitated. “Arctic Security and Associates.”

“I thought that company was just a cover?”

“In a way it is.” He winced.

Liam snorted. “It’s a multi-billion-dollar cyber and protective security agency with contracts in over fifty countries. The associate part is the law firm they run as well.”

“What the hell, Vas?” I screeched at him. “When were you going to tell me I inherited a billion-dollar company?”

“Multi-billion…” Liam smirked at Vas, who glared at him like he could shoot laser beams from his eyes and melt him into a pile of goo.

“Tomas wanted me to wait,” Vas explained, his eyes still narrowed at my father. “He didn’t want to overwhelm you with too many responsibilities. BeingPakhanwas more important first. Maksim and Nikolai have been running Arctic behind the scenes for a while. Before you even married Matthias.”

“Oh.”

When he put it that way, I could see how letting me adjust to one role before taking on another would be wise. I was barely keeping up with beingPakhan, and adding public CEO to my list would only make things harder for me. Especially since we were in the middle of a war.

“Well,” I beamed at him and slapped him on the back. Vas turned to me bewildered, “now that we have all this settled. Let’s go torture some people and make them pay.”

“After we get answers, of course,” my father, the killjoy, reminded me.

“Yeah.” I shot him a “duh” look. “Torture them…that’s what I said.”

“Torture is never highly effective for getting answers,” he educated me. “But—” He shrugged, ignoring my icy glare. “Okay.”

“And I thought our family was messed up,” Aine grunted, amused. Sully laughed as we all made our way out of the house.

“Oh, kid.” He shook his head. “You have no idea.”

CHAPTER TEN

Sleep was a nonexistent little bitch.

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