Page 1 of Shattered Empire (Shattered World)

PART1

PROLOGUE

Shattered cries surrounded me.

Tearful sobs and hushed, indistinct murmurs.

Noise came through staticky and broken like a voice through a bad phone line. Red lights danced across the water puddled on the street, droplets from the hose spray disrupting their calm surfaces as the firefighters struggled to contain the ferocious flames.

I could feel the heat of my father’s body at my back as he wrapped his coat around my shivering frame. Outwardly, my body reacted to the chill of the night air, but inside there was nothing but a dull numbness spreading through my system. The flames of the ambulance were dying, leaving nothing more than a charred shell behind. I doubted there would be anything left of him to identify.

Not that I needed to.

Vas watched them load him into the back of the ambulance himself. He’d been there every step of the way except—fury coursed through my veins, hotter than boiling water as I tore myself away from Liam, my gaze sweeping the scene until it landed on the normally jovialSovietnik. His lips were turned down, eyebrows drawn together, but he was safe.

Unharmed.

“Why weren’t you with him?” I pummeled his chest with clench fists, hot tears spilling down my cheeks. “Where were you? Why did you leave him alone?” I hiccuped and sobbed, my mind barely registering what I was doing or who I was hurting. It was as if a part of me had snapped and taken control.

This was Vas. Sweet and funny Vas, but my mind didn’t care. The monster lurking inside me wanted revenge. It wanted someone to pay.

He stood like a statue in front of me, frozen in place, his hands at his sides as he took my blows with steadfast determination. Why wasn’t he fighting back? Why weren’t any of his brothers defending him? He wasPakhannow. It was punishable by death to strike him, yet here he was, allowing me to do just that.

The punches soon lessened into slaps, and those weakened into nothing more than feeble pushes as my body lost steam and my mind shook itself from the fog of rage that had descended over it.

Warm arms enveloped me, pressing me against a hard chest as I sobbed, the scent of orange and cloves surrounding me. Guilt crashed over me, drowning me in its waves when he tugged me closer to him. “I’m sorry,” he whispered brokenly in my ear. “I am so sorry.”

I didn’t catch it then with the crest of unconsciousness creeping into my mind as the adrenaline and shock faded, but his broken apology felt deeper than it should have. What happened wasn’t his fault. Or maybe it was because he was hiding something beneath the battered exterior of his grief.

Secrets. TheBratvawas king of secrets.

Even as I sobbed and shook in Vas’s arms, the white-hot rage refused to dissipate. If anything, it grew. Vasily was not responsible for Matthias’s death, but someone was.

Kenzi was not acting alone, and I would hunt down every last person who had taken part in his death.

I would tear the city apart.

Let it all burn.

CHAPTER ONE

Ablazing inferno burned deep inside me.

Not a well of tears or a wall of sadness. My tears were dried, and now all that was left was a deep, jagged pit of hostility and rage. My eyes burned as I watched them lower the casket into the ground. Just a few plots away from where Vas had planted a headstone for Libby.

Her casket was empty. Void of any physical presence. Her ashes still rested in the urn Vas commissioned for her, waiting to be spread at sea. Except that the seas of Seattle were stormy, and honoring her wishes was near impossible.

Rain fell from an overcast sky in a torrential downpour. A sea of black umbrellas was spread across the cemetery. The deluge did not keep the men and women under Matthias’s command from paying their respects to the formerPakhanof Seattle. News of his death spread like wildfire, and not just to his allies.

Rival gangs who’d been pushed out to the farthest reaches of the city were chomping at the bit to reclaim their former territories.

And they were not alone.

One week.

That was how long the planning took to safely put Matthias’s funeral together, and in that time, Vas managed to keep surveillance on Christian, who was spotted numerous times meeting with the leaders of some of the most notorious gangs in the region.

Money exchanged hands, and it wouldn’t be long before they made a push into the city.

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