Page 49 of Rafi

“That flashing box there – that tells me we have a hit on Igor Aslanov’s location.”

“How? We can’t even see his face,” I complain, frowning.

“We don’t have to. The computer picked it up. Give it a few minutes as it generates and it will give us what we need.”

“Who’s the man standing with him?” Tayana asks.

Leo snips the man’s head and feeds it into another tab, before the image starts generating. All very technical, but it still amazes me what he can do with such a poor image.

“What else can you tell us while we’re waiting?” I ask him. “Where was the image captured?”

“Two days ago. The Imperial Hotel.” It’s a favorite with Russians.

“There we go,” Tayana says, her voice catching as Igor’s face lights up the screen. “That’s definitely Igor.”

“That’s the man I saw with Maxine,” I tell her.

“And here’s your second man,” Leo says, flicking between screens.

It’s my turn to lose my voice as I look at the screen in shock. Of all the things I expected to see, this was not one of them. Standing there beside Igor Aslanov in black and white, as vivid as the day, is none other than Daniel Russo.

28

RAFI

The room falls deathly silent as the new information sinks in. Lucky stares down at the screen of his laptop, at the images I’ve just sent him. His fingers grip the edge of the desk so tightly that his knuckles turn white. His gaze shifts slowly across the room, and I know his fury alone is enough to crack the very walls around him.

“Daniel Russo,” he growls, the words coming out like a low growl, too calm for the storm building beneath the surface.

His jaw clenches, the muscles in his neck tightening with the tension that’s now thick in the air. I’ve seen him angry before—hell, I’ve seen him furious—but this... this is something different. Something primal. His whole body trembles with the weight of his fury, as though it’s barely contained within the confines of his skin.

Gone is the joking, indifferent Lucky of yesterday, and in his place, a beast unleashed. I don’t even dare to breathe, afraid of triggering something that none of us are prepared for.

Lucky rises from his chair with an unsettling grace, like a predator about to strike out at an invisible enemy. His eyes never leave the laptop screen, but I can see the way his handstremble with restraint. That’s the part that scares me the most—how calm he looks on the surface, when inside, he’s a damn hurricane, about to tear everything to pieces.

Lucky lets out a roar, a primal, ear-piercing shriek that slices through the silence of the house. And then he moves.

The chair he’d been sitting in crashes against the far wall, splintering into pieces. The force behind it shakes the ground, a loud, violent explosion that sends the rest of us scrambling backward. Lucky stands there, chest heaving, fists clenched at his sides. The room smells of adrenaline and fear.

I’ve never seen him like this. This rage—raw, unchecked, terrifying—feels almost otherworldly.

“Lucky,” I call softly, but he doesn’t seem to hear me. His eyes are wild, unseeing. He’s looking at something only he can see, some imagined enemy that has already taken everything from him, every last scrap of his sanity.

I take a step forward, my own pulse hammering in my ears, but I stop short when Scar pulls me back by the sleeve of my shirt.

“Let him get it out. He’s not himself; there’s no telling what he might do next.”

It’s only when the door slams open, and Jacklyn rushes in, her voice soft and full of concern, that Lucky’s fury falters.

“Lucky,” she says, her voice a gentle command, almost like she’s soothing a child. “Baby, look at me.”

She crosses the room quickly, reaching him just as he takes another step forward, like he might break through the wall behind him.

She places both hands on his face, cupping it tenderly, her touch grounding him. Jacklyn is a force in her own right—calm and steady when everyone else is panicking. She leans in close, her forehead pressing gently against his as she whispers something I can’t hear. Her movements are slow, measured, asthough she’s trying to reign him back in without triggering the rage bubbling beneath the surface.

Lucky’s breath hitches as he looks at her, his eyes shifting from the madness that has consumed him to the woman he will do anything to protect. It’s Jacklyn’s safety that aggravates him now – Daniel Russo is the traitor who turned on her and set the city alight. He’s also the brother she doesn’t know about – a fling her father had way before he married her mother. He’s the one who shot her brother Jack and tried to kill her. And he disappeared without a trace after the war stopped and the city fell back into the hands of our family once again. He is evil incarnate, and currently, he sits at the top of the list of Seattle’s most wanted men.

“Russo,” he mutters, his voice hoarse. “If I come across that dumb fucker... I will cut him thirty ways to Winter.”

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