Page 92 of Lethal Legacy

That much was plain the moment I met her. Now, however, I’ve seen how deeply embedded the fear is within her. And despite my current fury, I know what that kind of terror does to a person. It colors every encounter. It makes every person a suspected enemy and every situation a potential trap.

I’ve felt the same fear she does. I spent years running from the Orlovs, the same enemy she’s running from now. That should make all of this easier, but it doesn’t. It makes it so much more complicated.

I have a thousand unanswered questions, but those can wait. Now that I know who is chasing her, her identity should be easy enough to work out. But I need to move carefully.

Extremelycarefully.

I’m grateful for whatever instinct made me keep my inquiries about Lucia to a tight circle of people I trust. Now, more than ever, that is vital. There’s no chance I will ever allow the Orlovs to get anywhere fucking near Lucia.

But as for me getting close to the Orlovs?

A surge of something dangerously like excitement thrills through my veins.

I put vengeance on the back burner twenty years ago. Initially, I didn’t have the means to execute it. Later, I owed Yuri and Mikhail my loyalty. I wouldn’t do anything to endanger them or involve them in a war that wasn’t theirs. More recently, I’ve been focused entirely on Mercura and safeguarding my godchildren’s future. War with another clan is not part of that plan.

But that doesn’t mean I’ve ever given up the idea of revenge.

I’ve only delayed it.

I know that one day I’ll hold Vilnus Orlov’s life in my hands. Stare into his eyes as I watch him die. I know it with a stone-cold, unmoving certainty. Killing Vilnus Orlov is a marker on the road of my life, a milestone I can see in the distance, that I’m moving inexorably closer to every day.

Vengeance is the reason I’ve always known I can’t have a family or children. The kind of vengeance I intend to take upon the Orlov bratva isn’t the kind of thing a man comes back from. It’s wholesale slaughter and destruction. Vilnus Orlov’s end won’t be found in a simple, anonymous bullet to the back of the head.

It will be no less than the destruction of everything he has. Of anyone who dares stand in his defense. Of every single thing he values.

The exception, of course, being his woman, if he has one, and his children.

Unlike the Orlovs, I do not punish innocents for the crimes, real or imagined, of those meant to protect them.

But I do want Vilnus to know I’m coming. I want him to watch, with increasing fear, as I draw ever nearer. I want him to fuckingknowwho’s hunting him.

It took me years to discover the names of the men who murdered my father. I had to be careful. The Orlovs combed the streets of Miami, looking for a boy they’d assumed wouldn’t last a week. I could have run, like my father had ordered me to. But despite the danger, I knew even then that one day I would have vengeance. And so I watched and I waited. I followed the men with sparrow tattoos as they searched for me in buses, trains, and airports. I learned who they were, where they lived. The name Vilnus Orlov, when I finally discovered it, meant nothing to me. I didn’t know why he and his men had killed my father or why they wanted me so badly. But even as a teenager, and despite my father’s orders, I knew that one day I would watch every fucking one of them die.

By the time Vilnus Orlov is face-to-face with me, I want him so goddamn terrified he’s pissing his pants.

And now that I know it was him, or those he commands, who carved those lines into Lucia’s back, I want that revenge so badly I can fucking taste it.

There’s only onepakhan.Whoevercarved lines on Lucia’s back acted on Vilnus’s orders, and it’s he who will pay for it.

“Fuck.” I spin away from the window, anger pumping through my veins to an almost unbearable degree. The mere thought of those bastards standing over Lucia with a knife turns my blood to ice. There isn’t a boxing ring in existence that could contain the kind of rage I feel.

There’s only one way to combat this level of emotion, and it doesn’t involve punching Dimitry around a mat.

It involves cold, hard rational thought.

Every fact I can acquire.

And then meticulous, strategic planning.

But first, it involves making sure Lucia Lopez doesn’t bolt before I have a chance to do any of it. Snatching my phone, I punch out a message to her.

Do not even think about running. Until and unless I specify, you are my employeeand bound by your contract. Please ensure the children are informed that I have given my consent to their involvement in the procession. I will contact you in due course regarding the issues you raised. Meanwhile, rest assured that your privacy will be entirely respected and your safety guaranteed.

My thumbs punch out the final sentence with enough force to bend the screen.

How could she ever think I’d hand her over to those animals?Or that I couldn’t keep her safe from them?

“I’m yours, Roman,”she’d said. Even the memory of it has my body roaring for urgent release. But clearly, she doesn’t have any fucking idea of what beingminemeans.

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