Page 88 of Bratva Butcher

“Why not?” Mikhail shrugged. “I’ve got a score to settle with him, too. I was in that room with you when he set it on fire. He tried to kill me, too. Plus, you’re going to need backup, and I have this little inkling you won’t be asking your children for it.”

He was right about that one. I wanted to keep them as far away from Talon as possible. The crippling fear I’d felt in that arena…I never wanted to experience it again.

No. It wasn’t their battle. It was mine.

Mikhail nodded. “That’s what I thought.” He reached into his suit jacket and pulled something out, flinging it across my desk.

I picked it up and groaned in distaste. “What the fuck is this?”

“You know exactly what that is, my friend. An invitation to Sir Allistair The Third’s Annual Ball.”

Yes, I could see that. And I wanted to light it on fire. “Why are you showing me this? You know I hate these kinds of things.”

Smirking, Mikhail said, “Oh, I know. I remember.”

For most of my life, Father had forced me to attend events just like that. High society gatherings and galas. Extravagant balls that only the rich aristocrats put together.

I was given etiquette lessons from a very early age. Taught how to conduct myself well and behave like some eighteenth century gentleman.

At first, I didn’t understand why that kind of shit was so important to my father. If I didn’t show up for the lessons, or fucked around during them, he used to have me whipped until I passed out.

When I was older, I found out the real reason why he treated those lessons like they were the fucking gospel: not because he told me, but because I’d uncovered the truth about our past. A truth he’d been so desperate to hide.

Our family hadn’t started from the top, like my brother and I had been led to believe.

We started from the bottom. Theverybottom.

My grandfather was nothing more than a cleaner in the Ivanov household, the family who ran the Bratva before we did. He was on the bottom of the food chain, which meant he got treated like garbage.

So did my father.

Sergei Volkov grew up dirt poor, bullied by the other children in the Bratva his entire life for being the son of a valet. After constantly being picked on, stepped on and ridiculed for his place in the hierarchy, he grew hateful. Vengeful. And he decided he was going to do something about it.

His ambitious mind came up with an ingenious plan. The help was so often ignored. A lot of people never saw them, never cared what they said in front of them. And because of that, my father was able to screw with the Ivanovs in a way no one else could have. He watched. He listened. And when the time was right, he striked, toppling their entire kingdom. He turned theIvanov soldiers against them with the promise of a better future under his rule.

Of course, that was complete bullshit. Once the men helped him with the takeover and served their purpose, Sergei executed them.

He could never trust them to protect him when they’d so easily betrayed their firstPakhan.

He’d then made sure to erase any knowledge of who he was before. He killed all the kids who used to bully him. Killed all their parents. Then, he started fresh with a terrifying reputation under his belt. He rebuilt the Bratva empire from the ground up, shaping it exactly how he wanted, making sure people only knew him as Sergei Volkov,Pakhanof the Bratva. Not Sergei Volkov, son of Arkadi Volkov, valet for the Ivanov family.

It was why his legacy was so important to him, why he cared about it more than anything else in the world. He’d worked his entire life to build his empire, to have people see him as more than just someone to clean their toilets. And he refused to have that image jeopardised by anyone or anything.

He took the same lessons he’d forced on me and Dominik, so people would believe we came from old money instead of the gutter. He worked his way through high society, either with bribery or threats, to ensure he was invited to all the big events until eventually, there wasn’t a guest list Sergei Volkov couldn’t get on.

I was dragged to them all. Forced to socialise and mingle with people I would have rathered disemboweled. Forced to dance with prospective wives set up by my father.

I hated every moment of it.

“Why the fuck would I go to this?” I asked Mikhail, flicking the gold-embossed invitation back and forth in the air. I had much more important shit to deal with than attend some frivolous party.

Like finding Talon.

And Autumn.

No!

I wasn’t going to waste another fucking second thinking about her. She was out of my life.Good riddance. And if I ever saw her again, I’d kill her.

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