Page 60 of Stolen By the Bratva

Most importantly, she saved my life. I had to give her credit and seriously start to think that she might want to be on my side without any nefarious plans lurking behind her eyes.

“Alek?” Dmitri walked up closer, holding his finger up to get my attention. “I’ve got a bead on Murphy.” He put his phone back in his pocket and nodded.

I knew it wouldn’t take long. Other than these men in here, more were out there working the streets. More yet were guarding the building where I’d left my wife crying on the bed.

Enough. I can make it up to her later.

“Let’s go.” It was about time someone located the cop referenced ambiguously as “The Doc” in those coded and encrypted emails. “I’ll come with you to… talk to him.”

Because the faster we put our trap in place to screw over our rivals, the sooner I could go home and address my wife.

Acting on this war would make me feel better. I would feel productive, like I was accomplishing something. All this time since I’d instigated this war and shaken things up, I’d been hiding, lurking and keeping Mila out of anyone’s reach.

Her safety was paramount. She was my priority, my future, but in the meantime, I could be the leader I was born to be. I would show these men, my men, how Pavel had failed to guide us.

A real leader would go out in the warzone and handle battles himself.

Dmitri got into the driver’s side of a car parked out back, but he waited to turn the key.

“What’s wrong?” I asked as he reached into his jacket.

“I went through Pavel’s safe like you’d asked.”

I frowned.

Nikolai joined us, sliding into the backseat.

“You told me to search for Father’s things. To find Mother’s ring to give to Mila before you married her,” Dmitri said.

“And we couldn’t find shit. I thought he'd burned it all or something,” Nik added from the back. “Until I thought to look in his safe.”

“He broke into it,” Dmitri said. “We didn’t find the ring, or anything of Father’s, except this.” His expression was guarded and sorrowful, almost as though he didn’t want to show me what this paper would reveal.

I took the document, realizing it was actually a pair of them. The first was Pavel’s birth certificate. The other was our father’s. They were twins. We all knew that, and as such, there was nothing to question. They were legitimate sons of our grandparents. Not bastards.

I shrugged.

“The times,” Nik advised.

I looked again. Then again. Back and forth, I tracked my eyes over the numbers that couldn’t lie.

Pavel wasn’t the firstborn twin.

My father, Pyotr Valkov, was.

Which meant Andrey had never been the actual heir to the bratva.

I am.

I slammed my fist to the dashboard, furious at my uncle’s deception.

“All the more reason to finish this business,” I said, letting my ire leak through my words.

Because he’s next. And he’ll be the last to ever try to ruin the truth as I know it.

26

MILA

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