Page 92 of Shattered Empire (Shattered World)

“Father?” Shock spread itself across her face. There might have been anger there too, but I was ignoring that.

“We’ll take the helicopter with Liam,” I told him. “Grab Kenzi, too.” Then I hung up.

“You wanna fill me in on what the hell is going on?” My wife huffed. Liam chuckled beside her. I narrowed my eyes at him.

“Don’t pretend like you are innocent in all this, Kavanaugh,” I snarled. “This was, after all, your idea.”

“What?” Liam grimaced at her sudden shriek. That one broke the sound barrier for sure.

“Matthias told me about his umm…other father?” He shot me a questioning look before continuing. “When we got word about the hit put out on him by that very man, we came up with a plan to make it look like Kenzi succeeded to draw him out.”

“Other father?” She looked over at me.

“It’s a long story,Krasnyy,” I told her. Ava’s response to that was to stare up at me expectantly, arms crossed, and snarl. “We’ve got plenty of time.”

There wouldn’t be any moving forward if I couldn’t be honest with her. I knew that.

“Okay,” I began. “Let me start from the beginning.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Matthias had a family.

Archer’s name was really Ivan, and he was Matthias’s brother.

Kirill, the man Matthias thought to be his father, had started the human trafficking ring we knew as the Chameleon Agency, and he had been a member of the stupid secret society thing.

Oh, and he was dead.

And his biological father was here to help.

Because he was the head of the RussianBratva.

Likethehead honcho.

ThePakhansof allPakhans.

I was going to be sick.

The helicopter ride had been short. An easy ninety minutes, which had been plenty of time for my husband to catch me up on all the shit he had been doing as a dead man. The Archer/Ivan thing still got me, though.

I owed that man a swift right hook to the jaw.

Twat waffle.

“The penthouse might not be secure,” my father told Matthias. “But we’re going to need all the evidence from the vault if we want to piece everything together.” Matthias nodded in agreement.

“Have your lower-tier men move to a safe house,” my father said. “The rest of you can come stay with us. I doubt anyone would look for your there.”

Except someone would know we were there. I went to say something, but Matthias’s elbow jabbed me in the side. “Sounds good,” he agreed. “I’ll have Tony drive you.”

Nodding, my father kissed my forehead gently before striding out the lobby doors. All my time here, and I had never known there was a helipad on the top of the building. It was cool in a billionaire tycoon kind of way.

“Wait for me outside with Kristian.” Matthias tilted his head at the burly security guard that monitored the lobby doors. He was a good guy with a sucky name. Not that I held it against him. I just refused to call him by it. Opting for Kris instead. The man didn’t seem to mind.

“Okay,” I whispered, clutching the boxes to my chest.

“Good girl.” And there went my panties. Matthias bent down and kissed me softly before following Maksim and Vas into the elevator that led down to the subbasement level where the vault was held.

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