Page 97 of Kings of Cruelty

Everybody does a cursory introduction, and in the course of things all the Russians end up on one side while Silvano and Kyran are on the other side of the room.

I’m with Konstantin, Yuri, and Nikolai.

I look through all the information I’ve gathered, everything I know about my father’s operations. I pause, and carefully ask, “Did you bring Pa’s phone, Kyran?”

Kyran glares at me. “You don’t need that.”

“That’s not what I asked,” I tell him.

He’s not used to me snapping at him, especially like this, and he looks briefly taken aback before he sighs. “Yeah, I brought it. But if I give it to you, Sierra, you’ve got to finish this and get out. You can’t…” His expression softens, and he takes a step toward me. “You can’t be in the middle of shit like this.”

“I’m not a baby,” I shoot back. “And you don’t get to tell me what I can and can’t be in the middle of. This is my life, all right? I chose this over… over…”

Whatever I’d had before.

Konstantin wraps his arm around me from behind. “She is not yours,” he says fiercely. “Sierrochka is clever. She knows what she’s doing.”

Yuri steps closer too. “We’ll protect her.”

Kyran scowls at the two of them. “Yeah. You’ve done a great job of protecting her so far,” he snaps, his eyes going to where the brand on my chest is covered. We all know what’s there, though—just like we know there’s a bullet wound not too far from it.

I shift uncomfortably, but Konstantin squeezes me more tightly against him. “Okay. We don’t have time for this,” I say, my gaze going to Silvano. If anyone can rein my brother in, I guess it’s him.

“We don’t,” Silvano agrees. He squeezes Kyran’s shoulder. “Give her the phone. We’ll figure out where to go from there.”

“Thank you,” I tell Silvano.

I might hate him, but this is the quickest path through this.

Kyran’s cheeks are flushed with anger, but as anticipated, he doesn’t argue.

If it wasn’t what I needed right now, I’d probably call him out on being Silvano’s bitch, but I need him to fall into line.

Kyran stalks forward, handing me the phone, and I take it from him.

“Okay,” I say, taking a steadying breath. “I need some time.” I grab one of the few chairs left in the room and sit down properly at the desk.

The others confer behind me, but my entire focus is on the phone and the computer as I finally put the rest of the pieces into place. My father really had been paranoid, but he hadn’t expected anyone to have access to both his files and his phone.

He definitely hadn’t expected it to be me.

A wave of sadness washes over me, and I can’t help but think of the last time I’d seen him. I catch myself; there hasn’t been time to accept what happened, let alone mourn, but that will have to wait, too.

So much is being pushed aside that I’m not sure how long I can keep that going before it all collapses onto me.

I don’t have time to think about that, either.

I use his phone to get past the two-factor authentication and passwords that had been on my father’s files. Along with the files I’d stolen from Don Marino, I’m able to see patterns I wasn’t before. If ever I had a doubt that the two of them had been working together…

I inhale sharply when I find detailed trade networks. Not only the guns, but the drugs, too. Don Marino had a whole operation for selling stolen identities, even, and that’s something to look intolater.

I focus on the guns. Even if we can’t sell them, we can use them.

That missing cache that I’d been searching for all these weeks is within grasp.

“There’s a stash at the old slaughterhouse,” I whisper. “In a…” I stare at the blueprints and compare them with my father’s notes. “A basement. They’re somewhere in the basement.”

Kyran grunts. “That’s wrong. The slaughterhouse doesn’t have a basement.”

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