Page 4 of Devil's Retribution

He paled. “I- no. No, I don’t.”

“Me neither. But my brother must be avenged. Now stop complaining and get it done!”

After our meeting, I excused myself to go over the information again in my office, which was soundproof and secure. In there, I could focus much better than when I was out on the club floor. But no matter how still and quiet it was, well away from the crowd and music, my thoughts would not stop haunting me.

Kidnapping innocent people now. I was a hard man, but my lieutenants were right. We had limits. Principles. Honor. Not like Charles Graves. Was I really ready to compromise all of that to avenge my brother?

Texts and emails were already coming in from Alexei and his men. Emma had a bad habit of checking in her location on social media. Her professional schedule was documented for her colleagues at the practice, and their system had been easy to hack.

My thoughts walked a razor’s edge, teetering back and forth between wanting to still be the man my brother had looked up to, and wanting to bring the man who had ordered his murder to bloody justice. It agitated me enough that I couldn’t keep still, getting up to pace after just a few minutes.

This isn’t right. She gives no indication of being a spoiled, amoral piece of crap like her uncle. She works hard. She helps kids. She has a kid. And here I’m about to seriously fuck up her life. And his.

But I had to do it. Thinking about turning away from this course immediately sent me back to that night. That nightmare Christmas party, holding my brother’s cooling body while everyone around me screamed. Knowing that I had failed him.

I can’t fail him again!

But it still wasn’t right…

Finally, Tolya tapped on my door, interrupting me.

I opened it and looked out at him stonily. “This had better be good.”

“Kalashnikov is here,” he warned, staring at me with a troubled expression.

I blinked at him, outrage dissipating and leaving behind a much more mundane mix of frustration and disgust. “Fuck.”

“Yeah,” my lieutenant sighed. “That’s what I said when I saw him.”

***

Igor Kalashnikov was the Pakhan of the Rurikovich Bratva, one of the few other outfits in LA that was large and strong enough to challenge us. We had been allies once, but that was before he’d started breaking deals and going back on his word. In his head, however, we were somehow the betrayers.

I wasn’t sure where his rationale came from, but in the course of four years, he had gone from one of our staunchest allies to one of our most bitter rivals. It had never gotten to the point of violence, but sometimes—like now, walking out to my table again and seeing Igor’s familiar, beaky-nosed profile—I wondered if it was only a matter of time.

I settled into my seat and switched my order to my usual Scotch on the rocks. Brandy was Dimitri’s pleasure, but for me, it was a pale second to whiskey. The rocks were a necessity, despite the summer rain outside, being in the club with everything going on had me feeling overheated.

Kalashnikov and his two bodyguards watched me sit, watched me wave Tolya over and order my drink. I wasn’t so much staring back as looking idly around the room, barely acknowledging their existence in it with the occasional glance. If I had stared, Igor would have taken it as some kind of insult. He, like the others, was supposed to be welcome here. I had to at least go through the motions of civility without stirring that old crow up.

I was three sips into my drink when he rose, flanked by his muscle, and swept across the room toward me, cane tapping. He had graying, backswept hair and a widow’s peak to go with that knife-sharp nose, and small black eyes that reminded me of a rat’s—especially now that he’d decided he hated me. I felt them boring into me as he tapped his way up to my table.

“Viktor,” he said, the word dripping with disdain. “I had hoped you would be in tonight.”

“Igor.” My tone was flatly polite, my expression disinterested. I wondered what the hell his angle was, besides showing up and getting on my nerves. The problem with Igor was that you never could tell what was going on in his head. “Well, here I am. What can I do for you?”

“I was just wondering how you’re doing. It’s been quite a while since we checked in.” His thin, colorless lips curved in a smile. “Still mourning your dear, departed brother?”

I felt my blood pressure rising and reached for control. My head was suddenly pounding. Another thing I couldn’t get used to, now that we were bitter rivals instead of allies was Igor, who still looked the part of the polished older gentleman, showing all the class of a thirteen-year-old schoolgirl. “I suppose mourning is an alien concept for you, as to suffer the loss, you’d have to have loved ones in the first place.”

The smirk dropped off his face for three glorious seconds before he forced the corners of his mouth back up. His eyes snapped with suppressed fury. Igor was a success in crime, but a failure in his personal life. His parents did not speak to him. His wife had left, taking their son. Everyone knew it—and most feared to talk about it.

I wasn’t afraid of Igor. I wasn’t intimidated by his bravado. And if he was going to shove his fingers into the Leon-sized hole in my heart, I was going to pay his cattiness back in kind. Let him see how it felt.

He recovered quickly, I guessed his heart was too cold for even anger to impact him much. “I see. Well. If you’re feeling particularly maudlin, you should know that there are fresh rumors floating around regarding just who ordered that trigger pulled. Why they did it. Who they hired.”

I stared at him. “I’m already well aware of who killed my brother,” I replied flatly. “But thank you for the heads up.”

Confusion washed through his little black eyes briefly and I had to fight a smile. He hadn’t expected that, when he’d come over to taunt me. But then his sneer returned. “I see. Well, that’s handy. So, are you just holding off on avenging Leon then? Letting the trail go cold?”

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