Page 158 of Oathbreaker

Pocketing my keys, I keep my hands loose at my sides as we follow Misha back into his mansion. Besides the men milling around, there’s no one else here.

“Luna?” I ask Misha’s back.

“She is painting fruit bowls and such right now. It’s a new hobby,” Misha says with amusement. I scan his features for any hint of deception or malice.

He’s eerily calm. “Your men can make themselves comfortable, no? Da, they can get something to eat and drink in the kitchen. We’ll be back,” Misha says.

Our guys spread out across Misha’s foyer, a few heading toward the kitchen, but most setting up at strategic locations.

Two stand outside Misha’s office, respecting the pakhan enough to not enter uninvited.

Leo and I follow Misha into his office. The boxes string along a long table, and a handful of Misha’s guards rip through them.

Their movements are precise and focused. They search past the pictures of horrible acts of torture, tossing the images aside as if they’re nothing.

Leo and I stand off to the side with our backs to the wall as Misha goes from box to box, looking at each of his guards as they get to the bottom of their respective crates. When he reaches the final one, Misha dismisses his men with an unreadable look.

The last one shuts the door.

Misha gestures to the seats, instructing us without words to sit. Neither Leo nor I move.

“You already know we didn’t find the book or whatever you’re looking for.” Leo’s voice is low, deadly calm.

Misha regards us for a moment before dropping his hands. A split second later, the convivial smile is back on his face.

“Drink?” he says.

When we remain silent, Misha lets out a humored puff of air and slowly sits in his wingback chair. With his legs spread wide, he is the picture of nonchalance.

“We’re friends here, no?” Misha asks as he picks up the glass of brown liquor he must have poured before our arrival.

“You tell me,” I grind out.

He tilts his head to the side. “Of course, my friend. You have, after all, saved my beloved Luna’s life.”

He lifts the glass, his throat moving as he takes a gulp.

I wouldn’t have noticed if I weren’t in a hypervigilant mood. Ice runs through my brain at the disbelief, but that feeling turns into a bolt of white-hot fury.

Misha looks down to place his glass on the side table, and I take that moment of distraction. I sniff, and Leo takes it as the signal it is.

I whip my gun out from behind my back, Leo following suit. In a blink, we both point our weapons at Misha.

Misha, the pakhan of the Ukrainian Mafiya, doesn’t even flinch or draw a weapon.

He stares at us with a sardonic look on his face.

“How do you Americans say? What’s crawled up your asshole?” He leans further back in his seat as if Leo and I wouldn’t hesitate to unload our clips into him.

“The eye,” I spit out.

“The eye?” he says back, drawling the word with a patronizing lilt of mock confusion.

“Don’t play fucking stupid, Misha.” I blow a bullet into the shelf behind him, whizzing past his head and the crude tattoo behind his ear.

The same tattoo I saw on Uvalde’s body. The same mark that my father and Morris Winthrope wore.

It’s small, and if he hadn’t turned his head to the side, if his blonde hair weren’t positioned so I could see the brand, I would have missed it. But I’ve been staring at the same symbol for the past forty-eight hours, so I can’t help but notice it.

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