Page 3 of Ruthless Prince

“Yes,” I whisper.

“Good.”

Another man walks down the stairs with a young boy at his side. The boy is older than me, but not by much.

“Good, you’re here,” Igor says. “Vincent, this is Dimitri and his son, Maxim. You’re going to fight Maxim. I want to see what you’re capable of.”

Afterward, I’m left with scratches and bruises all over my body. Maxim kept kicking and hitting me. After Dimitri and Maxim left, I’m left alone with Igor, who stands over me, staring down at me with disappointment in his eyes.

“You have no natural talent for fighting,” he says. “You’ll have to learn if you want to impress me.”

“Why?”

“Why do you have to impress me?”

I nod, still curled up into a ball on the mat.

Igor kneels beside me and places his cold hand on my head. “Because I’ll kill you if you don’t.”

I think, deep down, this is the moment I realize I’ll never see Mama and Daddy again.

NICO

I still have contacts in New York who tell me where Igor lives. It doesn’t take me long to find his house and a way to break in. I worked as head of the Italian Mafia in New York for a long time. I know the ins and outs of everything.

Not bothering with a team of men, I break into Igor’s house. My objective isn’t to fight. It’s to find Vincent and take him home.

I kill the guard by the front door with a silencer. His body would have flopped to the ground with a loud bang, but I catch and lower him quietly. Then I sneak deeper into the house.

The cover of darkness helps me not get noticed, but it does make moving around harder. I search every room in the house and don’t find Igor or Vincent.

Sweat begins to bead on my head. This is what panic feels like, I realize. Knowing my son is gone and I can’t find him is tearing me up from the inside.

The lights turn on.

Igor stands before me, holding onto Vincent’s pendant. “Looking for your son?”

“You know I am. Where is he?”

“I killed him.”

I stumble back, unable to hide how Igor’s words affect me. “What? No. You need him as leverage. Without him, I’ll just kill you.”

“Not if I kill you first.” He pulls a gun out and fires at me. The bullet hits me in the arm as I duck behind a couch. Grimacing, I hold my arm to my body to keep the blood from gushing out.

“Your son is dead, Nico,” Igor taunts. “You’re no longer a father. How does it feel to try and screw me over? You thought you could avoid paying me my fair dues. Well, now, you have nothing.”

The image of Aurora’s face fills my hand. She’ll be crushed when she hears this news.

“I demand to see his body,” I say.

“Fine.” Igor slowly approaches me, holding his phone up. On it, I see a video showing a basement and a little body lying on the floor. It’s Vincent.

His eyes are open, and he’s staring at the ceiling. His chest isn’t rising and falling. He looks dead.

“No,” I say. “No. Take me to his body. I need to know he’s dead.”

Igor presses his gun to my head and walks me down to the basement, where Vincent is lying on the ground.

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