Page 44 of Cruel Existence

I nodded. “It was planned chaos before his arrival. It was Lorenzo Amato’s gunman, Joey.”

My father reclined in his chair. His fingertips pressed together, creating a chapel formation.

“And when did you know?”

I made sure every part of my insides had taken on molten steel and stone. I would not let a bead of perspiration betray me. Not when her life depended on it.

“I confirmed it this morning through photos. My ability to access the Amato compound came in handy. I had seen this security officer more than once. He mainly remains at the mansion.” I didn’t go into further details about how he was the only bodyguard I’d heard of who was self-conscious about his appearance. But it was the one feature that had betrayed his identity.

He nodded. “But when did you know? Before or after you received the contract to marry Lorenzo Amato’s daughter?”

Fuck. He was willing to trap his own son. To make me step into a path littered with grenades. Whether it was a constant test of my loyalty or a way to toy with my allegiance, I would never truly understand his cold heart and mind.

“I learned of the prisoner’s confession only minutes after I received the offer to trade the girl for the tunnels.”

There was nothing that could force the full confession from my lips. Maksim had called me as I sped away from the Amato compound. The timing was a foul mix of fate and irony. I pulled over on the shoulder near some sugar cane wafting in the wind.

“I’ll send the video to you now. Destroy it after you watch it,” Maksim instructed.

“I know what to do,” I barked through gritted teeth. “Await my instructions.” He was the brigadier under my command. Sometimes I wondered if he had forgotten the order of things.

My phone pinged and I began to watch the video of the informant jabbering about the appearance of the hitman outside of Ivan’s favorite cigar bar. The man had casually walked up to my uncle, fired two shots in his back and darted around the corner. He had a scar across his nose. A giant scar that for some reason the fucking snitch had failed to reveal. Until today.

I banged my fists on the steering wheel. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. The AC blasted.

I tried to steady my mind. Stop my racing pulse. I had to fucking think for a second.

I glanced in the rearview mirror. Did Amara know? I couldn’t believe she did. I didn’t want to let myself believe she was a part of her father’s assassination plan against my family. I replayed our conversations in the bars, when we danced, at dinner. All the times I had held her innocence in my arms. Her reactions to Ivan’s death. The realization that I was now the Sovietnik. No. She couldn’t know.

I couldn’t be the one to tell her. But I did have to be the one to protect her. Between the contract from her father, the blackmail, and the price her father was about to pay for Ivan’s death I had to devise a plan to keep her as far away from this darkness as I could.

I had to keep her away from me. At all costs. No matter the pain. No matter how it shattered her heart. The deeper, the more jagged the cuts, the better. I could still taste her on my lips, and I had to tear her away from me. I could only protect her if she didn’t love me. If she wished me dead.

I knew after that blabbering confession that I had to be the one to kill Lorenzo. I had to take the mission on and control every aspect of it. I couldn’t do it and be with her. I would never hold her at night with her father’s blood on my hands. I would never be with her. Her father had ensured our fates were sealed.

My father interrupted the memory that had nearly destroyed me for a week. It had eaten away and chipped at my soul. The look in her eyes when I told her to leave and never come back. Sometimes I lost my breath thinking about it as if I was back in Bratva training and had taken a full punch to the stomach. The pain was immense. Sharp. Striking blow after blow.

I didn’t know how I had taken another breath after what I had done to her. I had her in my arms. In my bed. The most perfect, beautiful woman I’d ever touched. The pure trust and love in her eyes had been my undoing. I had destroyed any chance that a man like me could be redeemed in that moment. I had given her everything she wanted and shredded it in tatters so tiny, so frayed, they dissolved on the tips of the wind.

“We have dinner tonight with Katya and Andrey, but I’m surethey will understand if you can’t make it. You have Novikov business.”

“Of course.” I nodded. “I will handle Lorenzo Amato. I swear to you.”

“And his daughter?”

“We don’t kill women for no reason.” I had to keep my blood pressure steady and even. If he saw my pupils flinch, she would be on the target list. “She knows nothing. She’s just a young college girl. She’ll go back to Philadelphia with her uncle and cousins. I will make sure her father returns home in a body bag.”

My father stood and rounded the desk. His hand clamped down hard on my shoulder.

“I trust you, Luka. For Ivan.”

“For Ivan.”

He moved to his bar, poured two tall shots of vodka, and handed one to me. “Toast for my brother and to the justice you will find for him.”

I lifted the shot in the air and threw it back into my throat. It burned and coated on the way down.

“How soon?” he asked. “When will you bring me his family crest on that gaudy ring he wears?”

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