Page 85 of Ivory Oath

Anatoly almost manages to smother a snort at the suggestion that he and Raoul could use my help. “You’re recognizable. If anyone sees you, they’ll know immediately that we’re the ones who?—”

“That we’re the kind of people who don’t make idle threats. They’ll know not to fuck with us.”

Anatoly growls. “Something is wrong and I don’t want to go into a fight with you if your head isn’t in the right place.”

For a single second, my head is in a bedroom upstairs. Is Viviana still in the bathroom? Is she looking for me? Do I want her to find me?

But I shake it off and meet his eyes. “All of me is right here. I started this mess by refusing to marry Helen, so I’m going to take care of it. All that matters is taking out Christos and Agostino. All that matters is the Bratva.”

Anatoly arches a brow. He wants to argue, but he has enough sense to know it won’t do him any good. Whether I go to that wedding with the two of them or by myself, I’m going.

And he knows it.

Anatoly pulls the keys out of his pocket. “Do I still get to drive, at least?”

“Be my guest. So long as you can drive and walk me through the plan again.” I slip into the passenger seat and pull the door closed. “I want to make sure you know what the fuck you’re doing.”

Anatoly curses under his breath. “And yet everyone calls me the bastard.”

I let him complain. The only thing that might turn this day around is watching Christos Drakos choke on his own blood. No amount of griping from Anatoly is going to stop me from making that happen.

The reception is in shambles.

At least, it sounds like it’s in shambles. I don’t know much about weddings, but that much screaming can’t be celebratory.

“Hurry up,” Anatoly hisses, poking his head through the swinging door into the kitchen. “We have to go.”

The three of us watched the ceremony from the rooftop across the street, but Christos never showed. He wasn’t in the wave of arriving guests or in the processional after the ceremony. His niece and her new husband, the son that will tie the Drakos family to an influential District Attorney, left through a tunnel of bubbles.

But Uncle Christos was nowhere to be seen.

Anatoly and Raoul were ready to scrap the plan and go home. “We’ll regroup,” Anatoly said. “Figure out where to hit Agostino and try that.”

The thought of going home to sit and wait and sit some more made my skin crawl. Slowing down means stopping long enough to assess the steaming garbage heap that my life has become.

I’d rather turn someone else’s life into a steaming garbage heap.

Which is why I now find myself behind a stainless steel shelf of pots and pans with my hand around Damon Drakos’s throat. The mother of the bride is leaning against an industrial-sized refrigerator, softly weeping as she gawks down at her husband thrashing in my grasp.

“I’ll be done as soon as Damon tells me where his brother is,” I growl back at Anatoly.

Damon coughs, spraying blood down his chin. “I don’t know where he is. I don’t?—”

I drive my knee into his stomach—into the bullet wound I put there sixty seconds ago. About the same time the screaming on the other side of the door started.

“You know something. Otherwise, you’d wonder why your dear brother isn’t here today. Why would Christos arrange this marriage and not come to bless it? Huh?”

“We haven’t seen him!” his wife sobs. “It’s been weeks. We don’t have anything to do with him or his business!”

“Except pimping your daughter out to his allies.” I fix her with a hard glare. “Don’t waste my time with lies.”

Her thin lips seal closed. Good. Someone needs to survive to pass along my message.

“You have nothing to say?” I ask Damon, giving him one final chance.

He meets my eyes, summoning the last of his dignity as he silently awaits his death.

I nod and turn back to his wife. “When you do see him, tell Christos that this ends now. Tell him that he leaves my family alone or he’ll end up like his brother.”

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