Page 44 of Kings of Violence

“What? No!” Kyran says, his voice harsh. “You’re the one who told Silvano to keep me from doing anything ‘stupid,’” he says.

I try to calm myself down. I want to blame him, to blame Silvano, but he’s right. I’m the one who told him not to do anything rash.

But I sort of wish he’d done it anyway.

“Yeah, well. That still stands.” I take a deep breath. “They were threatening Mom, and Carol and the kids. There’s no point in risking everyone’s lives when I’m doing okay.”

That sounds pretty reasonable.

Kyran doesn’t have to know that “doing okay” includes being fucked by three men who hate me.

“We’d get everyone out first,” Kyran argues. “I can still destroy the fucking Russians?—”

“You can’t,” Silvano’s smooth voice says. “Is that Sierra? Put her on speaker.”

Kyran mutters something unintelligible beneath his breath, but I hear it when he switches the call to speaker. “There. I still don’t see why we can’t?—”

It’s my turn to interrupt him. “Because they’ll destroy you. Silvano, my favorite person ever, hi!” I say with my fakest bubbly tone.

“It’s good to speak with you,” Silvano says. “May I ask,howare you calling us? I was not under the impression Konstantin Voronkov would give you unrestricted access to a phone.”

“Magic,” I say vaguely. There’s a chance Konstantin can figure out what I’m doing, but I’m not going to walk anyone through the process just in case. The last thing I need is for someone to reverse engineer what I’m doing. “C’mon, Silvano. You know every woman has to have her secrets. But if you’re wondering, yes, I’m alone.”

Kyran mutters again, and I can’t quite catch what he’s saying.

“Speak up, Kyran,” I tell him. “I can’t hear you over all the mumbling.”

“I said, this is all fucking stupid,” Kyran snaps. “You don’t really expect me to believe they rolled out the red carpet and they’re treating you like a princess.”

“They are treating me like a princess,” I say with as much cheer as I can. “But that’s beside the point.”

“Yes, the point,” Silvano says thoughtfully. “I never did catch why the Voronkovs decided to infiltrate the manor in the first place.”

“They’re looking for some arms they think Pa hid,” I say, looking at the door to my room. I half-expect someone to barge in at any second, and I quickly add, “They’re not in the house. I’m trying to figure out where he did hide them, but they have me working on this janky-ass laptop that doesn’t do more than lag when I try to dig through it.”

“Weapons?” Kyran asks. I hear him mumble something to Silvano, but I can’t make out what it is.

“You know… I’d heard that at least a few of the weapons that were meant to be traded at that deal with Petrov were missing,” Silvano muses. “I’d chalked it up to the feds not being particularly thorough in their search, what with the high-profile arrests.”

“Fuck. I bet Pa was hedging his bets,” Kyran says. “You know what he was like. Always refusing to go all in.”

I hum, considering. “Probably. Kyran, do you know where he might’ve hid things like that? It can’t be anywhere too obvious, not if the Russians were willing to go to the manor in hopes of finding them.”

There’s a long pause before Kyran answers, “Pa didn’t really trust me with shit like that.”

Great. Now is not the time for Kyran’s daddy issues to rear their ugly head. “Yes, well, he didn’t trust me with anything either, but I’ve still managed to break into his laptop,” I say. “Not that I can do too much with it. There are so many fucking files that I don’t even know where to start, and they’re all encoded.” I shake my head even though I know they can’t see it. “I wish I had his fucking phone.”

They both go silent, and I wish I did have a video feed.

Silvano coughs. “What do you need the phone for?”

“Two-factor authentication,” I say slowly. “But it’s a moot point, because surely I would know if someone had rescued his phone after he died. Right?”

Kyran sighs loudly. “I have the phone,” he says. “After I—I found the body.”

My stomach churns as the implication of his words settle over me. “If you found the body, why did we have to bury an empty casket?”

“Sierra…” Silvano says, and his tone is strangely gentle. “You and your mother didn’t need to see the state of him. You don’t want to know what Petrov and his men did to him. And we couldn’t let the feds find anything that might have incriminated your entire family.”

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