Page 116 of Sinful Betrayal

I check my messages one last time to see if Nina’s gotten back to me, but there’s nothing, so I reluctantly shut my phone off, rather than leaving her another message, and climb out of the car.

“Hey, Anton,” Bianca greets as I walk through the front door.

She’s carrying a squirming Leo on her hip who sticks his tongue out at me as I offer him a smile.

She frowns at him. “No, Leo, we don’t do that.”

I stick my own tongue out at Leo when Bianca’s not looking, and the toddler grins at me.

He looks so much like Alexei, it’s scary, with his dark hair and brown eyes. It’s weird to think that one day he will take over from his father, and the next generation of Koslov’s will be by his side, including my own children, hopefully.

“Where is everyone?”

The house seems eerily quiet, considering I was told all the brothers are here.

“They’re upstairs in Alexei’s office.” Bianca tilts her head toward the stairs.

“Any idea what this is about?” I reach out to tickle Leo under the chin.

“Not a clue. But Mikhail didn’t look very happy when he arrived.”

“Mikhail never looks happy.”

“That is true.” She chuckles. “Anyway, I should get this little man in the bath. Say goodnight to Uncle Anton.”

“Sweet dreams, little man.” I ruffle Leo’s hair before heading up the stairs toward Alexei’s office.

The mood of the room is somber when I enter, and I instantly go on alert as I look at each of my cousins in turn.

The four of them are sitting opposite each other on the two couches, each one nursing a drink.

“I take it that Igor's made a move?” I look at Alexei.

He goes to respond, but then he glances at Mikhail, and I frown when no one speaks.

“What the hell is going on?”

Mikhail sets down his glass on the table and gets to his feet. “You might want to sit down, Anton.”

“I’d rather you just tell me what the fuck is going on.” I feel like I’ve walked into an intervention from the way that both Dimitri and Danil are refusing to meet my eyes.

Bianca wasn’t kidding when she said Mikhail looked unhappy.

There’s always a certain air to him that is cold and aloof, but there’s something else lurking in his eyes as he approaches me.

Pity?

Disgust?

“Mikhail?” My hands start to shake as I watch him reach into his jacket pocket and pull out a crumpled photograph.

“This is one of the photos I found in Lev’s apartment the other day.” He hands it to me.

I frown as I look down at the picture of Igor standing between two teenage boys. I spot Maxim immediately on the right. He looks to be around fifteen, and he’s already the spitting image of Igor, except for his mass of dark hair. He has the same sneering smile and wicked gleam in his eye as his father, and I feel a smug sense of satisfaction at having put a bullet right in his chest.

My eyes flick to the other boy, and I figure this must be Lev. From the way he’s cowering away from Igor, whose tattooed hand is gripping his shoulder, it’s clear that the two boys were treated far from equally.

Despite Lev looking exactly how each of my cousins did in their early teens—tall and lanky, with untidy dark hair, the dark shadows under his eyes and slightly grayish complexion make me wonder about the demons he’s fighting, both on the inside and outside.

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