Page 77 of Claimed By the Bratva Brothers

“What can I do? I need Lyric to be okay.”

“So do we. We also need all the ammo we can get against Matthew and his buddies. You’re close to him, Shelby. Close enough to help us.”

She shudders for a second when I slowly take out a small pocketknife and show it to her. She soon realizes what I intend to do with it, reaching her hands out so I can cut the cable ties off.

“Matthew will never forgive me,” she mumbles as I get rid of her ankle restraints next. “But he’s responsible for all of this. I can’t stay blind forever.”

“You’re a good friend.”

“He keeps a small, secret vault in his campaign office. It’s filled with a variety of files—cash, flash drives, minidisks, that kind of stuff. He calls it his blackmail stash. I thought it was a joke at first until the time he met with one of his city council opponents, supposedly to talk. He took out one of the flash drives, put it into the guy’s laptop, and played a few clips for him. By the end of the meeting, Matthew had the votes he needed to get a specific regulation to go through. His opponent resigned the next day. They found him dead about a week later from an overdose.”

“Were you present for that meeting?”

“Yes, but I couldn’t see the screen. No audio either, I think the video was on mute. Or maybe it was CCTV footage with no sound, I don’t know.”

“Do you remember the context of the conversation?”

She nods once. “I tried to talk to him about it after the guy left. Matthew said that it was the cost of fighting for the good people of Chicago and that he had no regrets. Getting his hands dirty in order for city legislation to pass felt like the right thing to do.”

“And when he heard about the guy offing himself? What did he say?”

“Nothing. He didn’t want to talk about it. But he was laughing, almost jovial. Accepting congratulations for other projects. Excited to do his fundraiser later that evening. Jesus, I’ve been ignoring a lot of stuff. The more I think about it—”

“The more you realize how awfully wrong you were about this man. I get it.”

Shelby looks at me, shame burning red in her eyes. “I can show you the vault. I caught a glimpse of his access code.”

“You need to be the one who hands the contents of that vault over to us. Legally, you’ll stand a better chance against any retaliation from Matthew or his lawyers if you do,” I warn her. “This will get ugly. But I promise, we’ll get you the best counsel available. We’ll protect you.”

“I don’t think I care about any of that right now but thank you. I just want it all to stop. I want Lyric back, Ivan, and if this helps you make that happen, I’m willing to do whatever you need.”

This will tip the scales so hard, and so fast that Bowman, Smith, and Phelps won’t even see it coming. I just hope we can get to Lyric before it’s too late, and that once it’s all over, we’ve all survived. Otherwise, I am ready to go down swinging if that’s what it takes to protect the people I love.

With Shelby’s intel, we’ll be able to do the one thing we weren’t sure we could do.

Our affairs in order, Max, Artur, and I prepare ourselves for the single, most challenging battle of our lives. The battle that will either cost us our lives in this war against this crooked faction of the Feds or win it. Everything is at stake. Everything can vanish into a puff of nothingness if we’re not careful.

Or it could lead to that fabled happy ending that we never imagined we’d ever see, let alone have within our reach. It’s almost there. I can almost touch it. I can almost taste its sweetness.

“Let’s see how many of them come to our aid,” Max says as we get out of the car.

We’ve been parked across the street from the FBI’s Chicago field office for almost ten minutes. Watching. Waiting. From the outside looking in, it seems like a pretty standard institution. I wonder how many of the people who work there are aware of the dirty operations that take place behind some of its closed doors. I also wonder what they will do when the truth inevitably smacks them across the face.

“I’m not going to hold my breath considering this morning’s vote,” I mutter.

Truth be told, I am hopeful, but hope is a fickle and dangerous thing. It can feed you delusions and have you blinded to outcomes that would otherwise be considered inevitable. This is a wholly different kind of war that we’re fighting.

“Word of Larionov’s demise has already gotten out,” Artur says. “I am curious as to how many will understand that it had to be done.”

“Frankly, we’re going to have our hands full either way,” Max replies. “The Chinese and the Japanese were the first to raise their hands in that meeting. We’ll need to have a sit-down with those fuckers.”

“Provided we survive tonight,” Artur scoffs.

“I don’t know about you, but I plan on surviving.”

“We have plenty to live for, don’t we?” he says.

“We made it this far,” Max chimes in. “We’re almost at the finish line. If we pull through, the other families will have no choice but to accept our terms.”

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