Page 15 of Reign of Four

“What’s your name?”

The door we originally came through opens, and someone flicks on the lights. They sputter to life one click at a time, and the monotones of the room brighten enough for me to see how truly vast the room is without any shelves or scaffolding in the way. You could fit so much shit in here. It’s a great place to house munitions, or vehicles, or?—

I squint at the boy now that he’s bathed in fluorescents. If I thought the room was dirty, I underestimated the kid—he looks like he’s been rolling around in dust for days. Dirt’s caked on his neck, dusting his clothes and hair, packed under his fingernails?—

Ezra appears beside me a moment later, his scowl deep and a muscle in his neck twitching as he eyes the boy. “There are six more in other room. You did not sweep building.”

“I was a little preoccupied.”

He ignores me, instead speaking Russian to the boy. How many of you are there?

The boy’s shoulders relax a little, and I realize he’s not just a random teenage squatter—he’s Bratva born and bred, although not where he should be, if that’s the case. If he doesn’t have a family, there are plenty of beds at the children’s home and a dozen more foster families who would gladly take him in.

So what the fuck is a child doing here?

I grit my teeth as I fail to come up with any reasonable scenarios. “What’s he doing here, Ezra?”

Ezra ignores me, walking up to the kid and asking him more questions. The boy scratches at his neck, and I realize it’s not dirt caked on his skin, but thick-lined tattoos, one of which mirrors Ezra’s own ink.

The boy’s come straight from Russia. He’s not one of ours, or we’d treat him fucking better than this. Anger strikes hot in my chest as the boy hands Ezra his gun and allows the older man to clap him on the shoulder.

I’m privileged in that I was born to a modestly wealthy family in American society. I’m still Bratva—but not like Ezra or Andrei, who were raised in its underbelly. I haven’t had to climb my way to the top of any ladders. I’ve been at the top since my life began—given an advantage because of my family name and position within our organization.

The way the kid glares at me shows that he, at least, understands that much. But if I get to mold this city and its Bratva the way I want—if Andrei gains enough power and influence to truly make changes—we’ll work together to ensure none of our people suffer injustices like this.

Living in a fucking warehouse.

I scoff aloud and leave Ezra to address the kid on his own. Pulling my phone from my pocket, I’m surprised to see that Andrei’s still on the line. “There are kids here. Russian Bratva. Katya likely had them brought over.” I enter the front office just in time to watch a clean-up crew zip up Billy in a body bag.

This whole thing is all kinds of fucked up. The kids housed in here didn’t even have a proper guard—just some random schmuck out to make some money.

My voice pitches as I hold the phone to my ear. “I want this kid to be the last, Andrei, you hear me? The last one we find like this.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“Make it that simple!” I slam my fist against the wall. “I want Valentina back, but she’ll hate us if we have to mow down dozens of kids to get to her.” I bet that’s Katya’s plan—to show Valentina who the true monsters are. Not the woman using kids as a shield, but the men willing to raise weapons against them if it means keeping our wife safe. “Katya’s a fucking coward.”

“She’s desperate. Desperate people make mistakes, Mikhail.”

I know what he’s implying—we can’t be desperate, or we’ll risk making a mistake we can’t afford. I step outside, avoiding Ezra’s team as I head straight for my car. Seeing it reminds me of Valentina in the passenger seat on the day I took her to meet my sister, and my chest clenches tightly.

Once I’m in the driver’s seat, I grip the wheel hard enough that my knuckles whiten, trying—and failing—to ignore the throbbing ache beneath my ribs.

“I thought she might be here.” I smile bitterly at how foolish the idea was—that she’d be locked away in some warehouse, guarded by one man, and one man alone. “I thought that maybe, maybe this was the one. That she’d be waiting for me inside.”

It’s the twentieth building I’ve checked since our video call dropped. The twentieth that’s gone off our radar over the past few weeks. There are dozens more. Not all are warehouses, some are apartment buildings, some are random lots and residential homes. I’m not sure when our control started to slip, but what was a mere blip on the radar before has become a nightmare.

Katya has been planning this for a long time. How to misdirect our attention and keep our forces thinned. How to stay hidden. How to steal our fucking Bratva out from under our noses.

Our control has always been . . . tenuous. We grabbed the reins from Tolkotsky’s stiff, dead fingers and ran with them, only to realize a few months down the line that not everyone in Tolkotsky’s advisory council had our best interests at heart. Some were undermining our orders and giving their own. Some were running drugs we didn’t sanction. Some were waiting on a tattooed god to smite the whole city and rebuild everything from scratch.

We eliminated them one by one and regained the ground we had lost, but it took time. Money. Lives. Things we couldn’t afford to lose.

Everything would have been so much simpler if Valentina hadn’t left. As one of the older Bratva families, the Baranovas have always had an obsession with blood, and following the bloodline for succession has been tradition for as long as the Baranovas have existed. If Valentina had stayed and married Andrei, our ascension wouldn’t have been called into question nearly as much as it had.

The fact that we’re still fighting to keep our empire despite everything we’ve put into it proves that we’ve let too much slip from our fingers.

It’s put our queen at risk. I wouldn’t be surprised if she tries to leave us for good, after this. Not that she can. Not that we’ll let her.

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