Page 142 of For a Price

I can sense the questions arising from the others. Kazan and Dmitri share looks. They’re getting nervous.

Not only are we surrounded five to one in the thick of this ballroom, but now it’s undeniable that the two leaders of our family are on the same page. If the sovietnik has brought his own men, then it’s over…

We’ll go down with a fight, but we will certainly lose.

I grit my teeth, hot with rage. “Two weak leaders joining forces. Am I supposed to be intimidated?”

“Eto tebya rasstraivayet. Pozhaluysta, ne pritvoryaysya?*,” the pakhan says in Russian. “Your own father has turned against you. That is a wound that will never heal.”

The pakhan would be correct if my father and I ever had a solid relationship to begin with.

But I don’t give a fuck if he lives or dies. The feeling is mutual.

The entire ballroom falls silent as my father steps forward to speak for the first time.

His first words come out as a garbled rasp until he clears his throat and tries again.

“Etot raskol v nashey sem’ye nazreval uzhe davno,” he says, his vocal cords still weak. “Menya ne udivlyayut eti sobytiya. No drugiye mogut byt’ udivleny, uznav pravdu. Menya nedootsenili?*.”

The pakhan’sbrow creases, his eyes cutting to my father. He senses the betrayal before anyone else in the room does.

Even me.

My father unsheathes his gold cane, revealing its dual purpose as a weapon. At the opposite end is a sharp blade that he moves to run the pakhan through with.

But the pakhan’sa split second faster. He dodges the blade and draws his gun to squeeze the trigger. The bang sounds louder than usual, echoing around the large room. I watch among the rest of the crowd as my father’s shot in the face.

Dead before the next blink I give.

Stunned silence fills the space the bang leaves behind. Everyone in the room is shocked at what’s played out in a matter of seconds.

I’m caught between shock and the rage that’s been driving me.

My father was going to kill the pakhan. Surely he knew what would happen the moment he ran the pakhan through with his blade.

He was doing so to help me.

This realization materializes in my head as the silence ends and I release a roar even louder than the bang heard around the room.

“KILL THEM ALL!” I bellow.

The gunfight kicks off. My men and the pakhan’sexchange gunfire. The Midnight Society members scramble in every direction around us, making the scene even more chaotic and brutal.

But we’re no longer a crew of twenty fighting against the pakhan, his men, and the Midnight Society.

The hotel’s flooded with another group of armed men that I recognize immediately—the unlikely ally I’d been hoping would show up arrives just in time.

Salvatore Mancino and his men crash onto the scene spraying bullets at the pakhan’sforces.

Everywhere you look, men on both sides are dropping like flies. Many of the Midnight Society members are casualties too, caught in the crossfire and shot dead with no means of defense.

I growl blasting my rifle at henchman after henchman. Anybody in my line of sight gets a fucking bullet.

But I’m most concerned with making my way through the crowd. I need to get to the front of the room where the pakhan’swatching the firefight from the stage.

He’s going to die. He’s going to suffer unimaginable pain.

I’m going to kill him. Rip him apart limb from limb.

---