Page 1 of His to Ruin

CHAPTER 1

Piotr

“This asshole has nothing more to tell us,” Leo Volante sneers as he wipes his bloody hands on a towel.

A feral grin spreads across his younger brother Matteo’s face. “Maybe not, but why stop the fun now?”

“Because it’s three a.m. and I need some sleep.”

“Sleep?” Matteo laughs mockingly. “You’re getting old, like Antonio.”

Their brother, who is head of their family, left us over an hour ago. Three years older than me at thirty-one, Antonio Volante is far from past his prime.

“Fuck you!” Leo’s response holds no malice.

Matteo sucks in air over his teeth. “I don’t know,fratello, you sound tired.”

“I’m tired of your shit,littlebrother.”

Leo takes every opportunity to remind his younger brothers of the hierarchy within their family. It’s not done viciously. If anything, he’s at his most amiable when he spars with them. He’s their superior, but he’s also their older brother and he’d do anything to protect them. I admire that.

Working with Matteo and Leo tonight has been illuminating. As we tortured the man who’s currently chained to the wall behind us for information, they moved around each other in a well-rehearsed dance. They communicated without words, each seeming to know instinctively what the other was thinking. Their closeness makes them a force to be reckoned with, a fact I hadn’t fully appreciated until now.

As an only child, raised by my uncle rather than my deadbeat father, I’ve never experienced a fraternal bond like theirs. I guess the closest I’ve ever come to it is with my oldest friend, Sev Baranov. I trust him more than anyone else, but even then I’m not sure I’d die for him.

“What do you think, Reznov?” Matteo asks me.

Pulled from my thoughts, I shrug. “It’s your women who were hurt tonight.”

Grigori Balogh, the lowlife we’ve been questioning for the past two hours, might not have been directly involved in the plot to abduct Emilia Volante tonight, but he helped the men who intended to harm her. The pretty new bride of Alessandro, the third brother in the notorious mafia family, was almost taken tonight.

The Volantes’ younger sister, Olivia, was hurt during the botched kidnapping and her brothers have taken their rage outon our Hungarian captive. Though I hate to see innocent women getting hurt, I don’t feel as strongly as Leo and Matteo do about what happened. I have no investment in the welfare of these women. Emilia is another man’s wife and Olivia may be a stunning beauty, but she’s too vain to interest me.

I’ve had dealings with Balogh before, but I only came along for the ride because the attempt to snatch Emilia happened at a hotel owned by the Reznov Bratva. By sheer luck, I was the one who prevented the lovely Mrs. Volante from being taken. I shot the asshole who was trying to drag her out through the service entrance.

“Exactly.” Matteo’s eyes glisten with something dark, a primal urge to obliterate his enemy. “It was our women, and he hasn’t even begun to pay for what happened to Livvy and Emilia.”

The viciousness in his tone surprises me. While I had no doubts about Leo’s ruthlessness, Matteo possesses an effortless charm that masks his savage streak. I wondered if it even existed. The moment we got Grigori Balogh back to this dank little room at one of my warehouses, I saw why Matteo’s name inspires fear.

A spluttering sound from across the room draws my attention. It seems our prisoner, who passed out a half hour ago, is awake once more.

“Piotr,” he croaks as if he has the right to use my name.

“What?”

“I have something for you.” Pain thickens his accent.

“Oh, yeah?” Though I can’t imagine what this bottom feeder would have for me, I move across the small cell so I can hear him better. “What is it?”

“For your ears only.”

His voice is weak, but his eyes convey determination to make me listen to him. I lean a little closer, unafraid he’ll lash out. Even if he wasn’t chained to the wall like a dog and hovering inches from death, he couldn’t overpower me.

“Tell me, then.”

His gaze flickers over my shoulder to where Leo and Matteo are watching from the other side of the room. “Get rid of them first.”

I shake my head. “This is their show, not mine.”

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