Page 56 of Shattered Empire (Shattered World)

“Until we can come up with some solid evidence, why don’t we move on to where the hell he is?”

“Oh, that’s easy.” Kenzi winked as she pressed the control to move the tablet’s viewer forward a few slides. “He’s in London.”

That was a hell of a lot farther from Russia than I had thought he would ever get. The man had firmly believed in what it meant to be Russian. I never thought he would leave the country.

“What the hell is he doing there?” I wondered, my tone darkening. Kenzi’s brows buried in her hairline as she took in my sudden demeanor change.

“He’sPakhanof the localBratvathere,” she informed me, her eyes narrowing, waiting for me to explode. I wouldn’t, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t pissed off. I was in an information overload. The man I thought was dead was still alive. Kirill Kasyanov was the only name I had ever known him by. I never thought it to be an alias.

Fuck. All this time, he was alive for me to interrogate. To kill, and I missed it. And to learn that he wasBratvaroyalty. Even illegitimately…

Shit, I had family. An uncle and cousins. Not just the brother I had murdered in self-defense.

“He was madePakhanaround ten years ago,” Mark informed me. “But from the looks of his books, it’s not going well. He’s hemorrhaging money and not in a good way.”

“There’s a good way?” Leon teased, trying to lighten the mood as we neared the private airstrip on the outskirts of Tukwila. My private jet was waiting for me, fueled and ready to go. Apparently, our trip would be leading to London rather than Russia, as I initially thought.

“He isn’t losing product to turf wars or thieves,” Mark clarified. “The money is just…disappearing. It’s in small enough amounts at a time that unless you were a forensic accountant, you wouldn’t even notice it. I doubt the home office has even blinked an eye until recently.”

“What happened recently?” I questioned.

“He couldn’t afford to pick up product from the cartel.”

Leon whistled. “Yep, that is bound to draw attention.”

He was right. Wars had been started for less. The cartel ordered their product off how much each client was willing to pay. Usually, a couple of million. If Kirill had been unable to pay for the product the cartel had already ordered, he would be in some serious shit. The cartel would refuse to shove off the debt. They’d come after Kirill and his men until he was able to pay. And knowing the cartel, they wouldn’t just killBratvasoldiers, but their wives and children, too. Until either no one was left, or they paid.

Either way, it would be bloody unless Andrei stepped in for his brother.

Fuck. Andrei Tkachenko was my motherfucking uncle. That was going to take some time to wrap my head around. Leon pulled the SUV into one of the spots near the hangar. Dima stood at the bottom of the flight of stairs with the pilot. When he saw us park, he gave a slight nod to the pilot, dismissing him before heading in our direction.

Dima was the obvious choice to take with me. He was young and smart and could easily blend into any given environment. Leon had been my runner-up, but his presence would too easily be noticed if he was gone. That, and he was going to be needed if shit hit the fan with the Italian Mafia here. Dante Romano had been MIA since our run-in with him at the small shipping port where we found the cash and shipping container.

It was thanks to the miscreant reporter Bailey that we managed to put a few more links in the chain on figuring out how Ward had been getting money into the United States from the Middle East. American dollars, at that.

“There’s one more thing you should see before you go.” Mark nodded through the screen at Kenzi, who dutifully changed the slide on the tablet.

“Recognize him?” she asked curiously.

My jaw clenched at the sight of the man before me on the screen. He was tall, almost as tall as me. The silver hair he’d sported was gone, replaced with a rich dark brown that screamed fake but somehow suited his face. I wondered which color he’d faked. He appeared younger than the videos and photographs my men had gained since I learned of his involvement with Ava.

When I first saw him on the video feed outside McDonough’s, his suit was two sizes too big, a cheap department store fabric that wrinkled with the slightest movement. Now, he wore a gray tweed Sebastian Cruz original that fit him like a glove. The wolf had shucked away his sheep costume.

“Jonathan Archer,” I sneered at the screen. “Tried to frame me for Elias’s murder.”

Kenzi shook her head.

“His name is Ivan Tkachenko and—” she informed me as she flipped to another slide. My blood froze as I stared at the image before me. The man’s hand was outstretched, the skin of his wrist barely visible, but I could still make out the familiar deformation that every man in my family carried. “He’s your cousin, and he’s been on your tail for the last ten years.”

Ten years? He’d been after me for ten years, and the first time I’d had any confirmation of this was in the past few months. What had taken him so long to make a move?

“It explains why he wanted that video.” Mark cleared his throat uncomfortably at the reminder of his betrayal. One I didn’t have the heart to hold against him. Most betrayals were met with a swift hand. A bullet between the eyes, and it was done. There was something about Mark, however, and whatever it was, I couldn’t bring myself to view his betrayal as malicious. Not like I had Ava’s.

“He was searching for proof,” I growled.

“Maybe not,” he told me.

“He must have just arrested me for fun, then,” I deadpanned.

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