Page 52 of Deceitful Promises

“Boyfriend?”

I shake my head.

“It seems to me,” Mikhail says, “you’ve got the hots for this young, naive, vulnerable girl—our sister, your stepsister.”

I don’t let any emotion show on my face, and I do my best not to let it register in my body language, but it’s not easy. The way they’re phrasing it makes me sound like some sicko.

“She’s lived a very sheltered life,” Mikhail goes on. “She doesn’t know what she wants.”

“Hmm.”

“Hmm, hmm.” Mikhail scowls, taking a sip of his coffee.

A few minutes later, two men walk into the food court. One of them is lean and short and is wearing a leather jacket. The other, walking slightly behind, is clearly the muscle, a man even taller than the three of us, and that’s saying a lot. The man in the leather jacket stops at the table with a calculating expression.

“Sorry for my tardiness,” he says with a snakelike smile.

“Should probably be more sorry about the bomb, buddy,” Mikhail says.

“Do I need to introduce myself?” Roman Kozlov says.

“No. We know all about you,” Dimitri says, standing and offering his hand. “Let’s have a nice, civilized discussion about why you’re making the worst decision of your life going against us.”

Roman shakes his head with a little extraoomph, then sits down. The muscle lingers nearby.

“Let’s start by stating the obvious,” Dimitri says, as his younger brother leans close to Roman, staring at him as his hair flops to the side, looking like he’s ready to strangle him at a moment’s notice. “You’re very lucky nobody was hurt by your little stunt.”

“I’m the lucky one?” Roman snaps. “You beat and bloodied three of my most loyal men.”

“After they burned down a lodge that, for all they knew, had my sister inside.”

“They wereyourorders.”

“No, you fuck,” Mikhail snarls. “We told you toget her to safety.”

“The mistake was ours,” Dimitri says. “I had what I thought was reliable intel that the Kozlovs were trustworthy. I was wrong, but as I said, you were lucky. Now, we need to decide how we’re going to handle your grave mistake.”

“Handle … me?” Roman sneers. “This is my city. This is my turf. This is myworld.”

The muscle nods, staring like we’re all supposed to be impressed. My hand twitches under the table as I think of all the things I’d like to do to this man for daring to put Ania’s life at risk.

“We’ve come to a reasonable decision,” Dimitri continues, ignoring his outburst. “You’re going to cease the distribution of all hard drugs. We’ll let you keep dealing weed.”

“You realize how insane you sound, don’t you, Sokolov?”

“I know. You’ll be losing a large chunk of your income.”

“Better than a large chunk of your skull,” Mikhail growls.

I smirk. I can’t help it. That’s one hell of a line. They’re doing the whole good cop, bad cop thing very well.

“Got something to say, Daddy’s boy?” Roman snaps at me.

I smirk. “My father is a successful man. It’s true, but don’t let that give you the wrong impression.”

“Oh? What impression should I have, then?”

“If you had a brain, you’d thinkI should listen to these Sokolov brothers. Otherwise, they might give me to their friend.”

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