Page 63 of Shattered Empire (Shattered World)

“Pavel and Kirill made sure all the evidence pointed back to Malik,” Ivan kept on, his breathing growing rapid as he recalled how the mother he barely got to know was taken. “Kirill and our father were friends, but according to Pavel, all Kirill wanted was Andrei’s seat of power. So, he started a war. Offered his brother his support as a spy.”

I held up a hand to stop him. “How could he have done that if Malik had banished him to St. Petersburg?”

Ivan raised a brow at me. Of course, he would have falsified everything to cover his tracks. “Kirill and Pavel’s job in St. Petersburg was to gain support. Kirill manipulated everything so that he could be there to make sure our mother never escaped.”

“So, what?” My jaw clenched so hard I could hear my teeth grinding. “He thought he would help Andrei overthrow Malik, and then what? He still wasn’t the heir.”

“Until our father legitimized him as a reward for his service.”

Blyad.

That would make Kirill the next heir, but if he sought to kill Andrei and gain the throne, then why wasn’t he dead?

Ivan knew what I was thinking and voiced his answer before I could verbalize my question. “Until recently, he hasn’t tried to make a move directly on our father. He started with us. The heirs.”

Us. The heirs.

“Why the façade, Ivan?” I looked askance at my brother. “You join with Christian Ward. Blackmail my wife. You’ve spent the last how many years impersonating an FBI agent. For what? To get revenge on me for killing Antony? For letting our mother die? Honestly, I can’t figure out what the hell you’ve been playing at,brother.” I spat the word out. “Why should I trust anything you’re telling me right now?”

Silence simmered in the air between us. Volcanic activity bubbling beneath the surface, waiting for the right moment to explode. There was bitterness between us. A tight rope strung to the point that the threads were fraying. One harsh pull, and it could sever itself forever, and there would be no repairing it.

Ivan’s throat bobbed before he spoke. When he did, his voice was quiet, broken. It was the voice of a man who had lost everything he loved. Something I knew about all too well.

“I hated you at first,” he admitted hoarsely. “Antony disappeared one night, and he never came back. Kirill told me…” Ivan choked, his throat clogged with overwhelming emotion. “He told me that Antony had found you, our little brother, and that he was going to bring you home. When he didn’t return with you, Kirill showed me a picture of you stabbing him.” Standing, he ran a hand through his hair. Ivan paced the small space between our chairs, still holding his drink as he told me his story. “There was so much rage and pain. I couldn’t imagine why you would want to kill your brother.”

“I didn’t do it by choice,” I assured him gently. Ivan came to a sudden halt and hung his head, shame coloring his cheeks.

“I know,” he whispered brokenly. “Over the years, more and more things just were not adding up. Conversations I would overhear. Meetings he would have. Our father gave Kirill so much power for his loyalty, and he never saw how much his brother was abusing it. Still doesn’t. Losing our mother made him mad for revenge, but when the war was over and the bloodshed ended, he was broken. Despondent. The more time went on, the more he withdrew from his duties asPakhan. Especially after losing Antony.”

“How did Kirill becomePakhanof London?” I wondered. “Wouldn’t he be wanting to sit closer to the seat of power in Russia?”

Ivan snorted. “The one good thing our father’sSovietnikhas done was send that fucker here,” Ivan spat. “Vlad couldn’t prove it, but he was beginning to put things together as well. Our father put an end to the Tkachenko human trafficking ring when he took power. It disgusted him. Suddenly, not long after Kirill started gaining power, there were new rings popping up and women going missing again.”

“Did you ever find out a name?”

“No,” Ivan sighed and sat down in his chair, utterly defeated. “Just an emblem of some kind of lizard or something on the top of some papers.”

Bingo.

“The Chameleon Agency.”

Ivan sat up straighter, the slump in his shoulders straightening.

“You know who they are?”

“We’ve had a run in or two with them over the past year,” I told him. “They take women and put them in auctions all around the globe. Sometimes they sell them directly to high-profile clients. Have you ever heard of The Dollhouse?”

“Rumors and whispers,” he admitted with a shiver. “But nothing else. Some say the organization is older than most countries. That every large-scale assassination attempt in history is thanks to them. Caesar, Lincoln, Rasputin, Alexander, Ghandi, King—the list goes on and on.”

“Pfft.” I rolled my eyes. “That is a bit presumptuous.”

“But not altogether without merit,” Ivan pointed out. “Who knows how long an underground organization like that has gone unnoticed. Been renamed. Do I believe they orchestrated the assassination of Julius Caesar? No. But Lincoln? King? It is a distinct possibility.”

“Both of those figures were assassinated by men,” I rebutted. “From the research we’ve been doing, that isn’t their target for forced recruiting.”

“It isn’tnow,” he said. “But women hold more power now than they did in the 1865 and in 1968.”

He did have a point.

---