Page 182 of Deceitful Vows

“Take Forty-Second Street. It will bypass the nonsense.”

Mikhail nods before turning down the street I suggested as I snatch up his phone from the middle console. It is still unlocked from when he showed Mara a picture of Nikita.

“We’re going to discuss this.” I twist his phone to display the album of photographs I’m referencing before hitting the call button. There are hundreds, and although I feature more than Nikita, I am not okay with his level of snooping.

I suck at interviews, but I am a whizz with numbers. I can remember most by heart. Since I have called Ano’s a handful of times since objecting to Aleena’s wedding, that’s the first number I call.

Ano is Nikita’s shadow. He sits in the hospital’s underground parking lot for hours every day, watching the live feed of the hospital surveillance. He wouldn’t just leave his post.

“Come on, Ano,” I murmur when my call rings and rings and rings. “Pick up.”

“Hey, you’ve reached Ano?—”

I hang up and try again as a soft voice from the back mutters, “Did you s-say Ano?” When I nod, Mara’s cheeks whiten before she shifts her eyes to Mikhail watching her in the rearview mirror. “You should pull over before it is too late.”

He does so without interrogation. The sheer panic in Mara’s gaze is enough to crumble the knees of the strongest man, let alone what she says next.

74

ANDRIK

Ipull off the hairnet flattening my hair and then remove my face mask, unmuffling my voice just as Konstantine answers my call.

“Did he find her?” I ask before he can speak a word.

“Yes,” he replies, his pitch high. “But we’re fucked.” My heart rate surges as erratically as it did when Zakhar’s new heart took its first pump hours ago. “I said this was fucking suicide. They’re coming at us from all angles. Henry’s army is too big. They’re going to wipe us out.”

“They?”

“The Gottles and the Ivanovs.” It sounds like his finger jabs a trigger more than a keyboard. “Zakhar’s heart didn’t come from the fe?—”

Our connection is lost before he can finalize his reply. I don’t need his words to understand what is happening, though. It is midday, but even if the sun wasn’t bright enough to light up the street, I couldn’t miss the swarm of armed men racing toward the main entrance of the hospital.

The front runner is gunning for blood, and that is precisely what I’ll give him if he’s here for what I think he is.

As I return to Zakhar’s room to protect him from the hellfire about to rain down on him, I remove my gun from its holster and point it at Maksim Ivanov’s head.

My fighting stance scares away the nurses settling Zakhar into his room after a few hours in the recovery unit, but since their cowardice won’t affect Zakhar’s rehabilitation, I let them leave.

Machines are no longer the sole thing keeping my son alive. His new heart is—a heart I am suddenly fretful Maksim is here to collect.

Maksim enters Zakhar’s room without fear for his life, like I won’t gut him where he stands if his sneer is anything to go by.

I understand his cockiness when I recognize the face of the man who enters next. He’s bigger than the federation. More feared because his army isn’t confined to one country.

He rules them all.

Henry Gottle the Third is the boss of all bosses and the very man I’d hoped would take the bait I dangled in front of him weeks ago. He has the power to dismantle the federation, but at the moment, his expression announces the only head on his chopping block is mine.

Maksim’s deep snarl is picked up by Zakhar’s heart monitor. “We had an agreement.”

“Which I have maintained.” My words are for Maksim, but I keep my eyes on Henry since he is clearly the least unhinged of the two.

Maksim scoffs before he signals for a man I swear I’ve seen before to move forward. He’s dressed in the same riot gear as Maksim’s and Henry’s crews, but he is without a gun. Like Konstantine, he prefers fighting with a keyboard.

Without moving the scope of my gun from Maksim’s head, I peer down at the document the dark-haired man brings up on his tablet before silently cussing. The email Konstantine failed to send weeks ago sits in the outbox of my email server. It was forwarded two days ago, minutes before Zoya uploaded the footage she had unearthed onto the USB she gifted me.

She got Zakhar a heart and broke my promise to him at the same time.

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