Page 6 of Unfulfilled Promises
Walking out of the banquet room and down the hallway that connected to the main living room, I was overthinking everything and not watching where I was going. I ran into someone and stumbled backward. I tried to catch myself, only to be lifted off my feet then safely placed back down. Looking up, I saw Seth and a man I only knew as Booker. He smiled down at me as he released his hold.
“Sorry,” I remarked and tried to step around them, but Seth moved with me, blocking my path.
I lifted my eyes up his lean body until I met his watchful gaze, and before I could make some excuse why I was rushing, he looked over his shoulder and said, “I’ll be there in a minute.”
Booker nodded before briefly glancing at me with a small smile. He turned and walked down the hallway, leaving me alone with Seth.
“What has you in such a hurry, beautiful?”
Shaking my head, I plastered a fake smile across my face. “Nothing. I was just going to see if anyone needed a drink or something else to snack on.”
He tilted his head and the similarities to the man who haunted my nightmares had me taking a step back from him. Seth’s eyebrows furled down in confusion as I stepped back farther. He opened his mouth to speak but closed it again before he shook his head and said, “I’ll see what they need and have one of the guards grab it. You don’t have to wait on everyone.”
He went to touch my cheek, and I moved away. The wounded look in his eyes said more than words ever could, and with a nod, he stepped around me and walked away. I knew my coldness was what caused him to leave, but at that moment, I couldn’t see past my fear to be amenable.
I waited a few minutes then carefully walked down the hallway to the office Rhys called the war room, but when I got to the door, I saw it was closed. There would be no eavesdroppingon them, so I walked away defeated from the room and to the courtyard in the center of the house. With the nip in the air, no one was out there, and when I took a seat with my back to the door and my gaze locked on the wall of plants on the opposite side, I allowed the tears to finally fall.
Silently, I sat there with tears rolling down my face as I debated barging into the room and yelling out the truth.
Your father, the monster known as Sergey Lenkov, made me his confidante, his little black book, and his confessor. I literally know where every body is buried, where every penny of stolen money is hidden, and who Sergey wanted involved in the new uprising of the Syndicate. I’m the reason Rylee, Hannah, and a few other innocent women were taken and publicly assaulted. I’m responsible for all the hurt and pain. I’m a monster just like him, and I can’t forgive myself for what I did to survive, or why I haven’t spoken up sooner.
The tears slowed as I debated what I needed to do. There were ledgers that I’d buried before Ricardo came and got me the night Sergey was killed. I knew they were the key to everything, but I couldn’t remember where exactly they were. The Feds kept moving us around because Sergey couldn’t help himself and kept inviting problems into his supposed secure world. I had snippets of the night he died as a fresh round of tears flowed and I angrily swiped them from my cheeks.
That bastard didn’t deserve my tears, and it wasn’t mourning him that caused me to cry. He wasn’t a good man, but he kept his word and made sure I was safe. But then his death caused me to be dragged through hell for the next eleven months, and that’s where the tears came from. And the guilt pushed through like always. I got what I deserved from helping him, and no one can tell me otherwise.
Chapter 3
Seth
Iwas the last into the war room, as Rhys liked to call it, and I found a seat next to Booker at the end of the table. He quickly glanced at me then to the hallway and back to me, and I knew what he wanted to ask but wouldn’t while inside this room.
What’s going on with Regan?
I wanted to know the same thing, but her body language and evasive maneuvers when I tried to touch her said more than her fake smile and hollow pleasantries. Something was bothering her, and I worried maybe I was the cause. She’d lived an isolated life behind the protected walls of this compound for close to four years, and I’ve watched her for the last six months or so. She carried something heavy around her shoulders and refused to discuss it.
Her story was muddled, but her condition when they rescued her wasn’t. The pictures I saw were crystal clear, and from the open wounds, whip marks, and healed cuts, what she’d endured nearly killed her. She survived long-term, painful assaults that forever changed her, and I was starting to think my idea was going to destroy before I got her to trust me.
And before anyone thought I was using that beautiful creature to try and find out what she may know, they could fuck right the fuck off. I would never do that and anyone who would was an asshole. I meant what I said to her—she enthralls me to no end. From the smile she gave whenever she watched someoneenjoy something she cooked, to the way she handled a Glock, and a million other small things, Regan was someone special.
“I want to start by saying thank you to everyone for being willing to sit down and discuss this today, and I hope by the time we leave this room, we have a better idea of a timeline. Somehow, I know we’re missing something important, and I thought if everyone was together instead of the virtual meetings we’ve had up until now, we could make some real headway,” Rhys said to the group. He looked to his left to James and asked, “Do you want to get started?”
James gave him a nod before he stood from his seat, but just as he went to speak, the door opened behind me and all eyes in the room swung in that direction. Hannah smiled and lowered her gaze as she closed the door behind her and took a seat in one of the chairs along the side wall.
“I’ve been going over the journal we got from the raid at the last Syndicate party we broke up and I’ve found some . . . discrepancies in what we know to be true and what’s recorded.” James pressed something on his computer and a slide appeared on the large monitor mounted to the far wall of the room. “As you can see from the graphic, the list of original members of the Syndicate from the FBI files is on the left and the list from the journal is on the right. Notice anything?”
A gasp came from the far side of the table, and I noticed Hawk wrap his arm around Stella’s shoulder. “Why isn’t the Volkovs name on the FBI’s list? Why are they in the journal but not on the other?”
Stella was the first of her family who was sacrificed to the Syndicate, and her daughter, Hailey’s, father was Adrik Volkovs, whose reputation for being especially cruel was still known, even though no one’s heard from him in over a decade.
“Now, you can see why we wanted to speak to everyone at the same time. The differences in what the FBI investigated andwhat Kelly recorded are major, so it’s time we make as complete a timeline as we can,” Devlin explained, and I could see the pain on Lucian’s face, knowing he was going to have to eviscerate himself in order to discover what we’re missing. Thankfully, Rylee wasn’t in the room to have to relive her experience, but I hated he had to do it. “And we need those who were inside to tell us anything you can remember—people, houses, names. It may seem insignificant, but a little detail may be exactly what we’re looking for.”
Stella stood from her seat, walked up to a large dry erase board mounted near the monitor, and began to write. What followed was unbelievably emotional to witness. She documented every person she came into contact with during her time in the Syndicate and wrote down the location of houses she visited when she was traveling with Adrik, and when she was finished, she turned to face the room.
Her man, Hawk, was offering her a smile as she began to speak. “When I came to realize I was never going to be free of the Syndicate and Sergey’s wicked reach, I took matters into my own hands and killed Hailey’s father. Hawk helped me find Rhys, who helped me to heal, but there was one more person who needed to be dealt with, and I waited for any sign of him. I received an anonymous email about five years ago telling me where Sergey was going to be and how many guards would be watching him. I made my move and killed that fucker before he could drag Hailey into his madness.”
“Do you still have access to the email account? Maybe I can put a trace on it and see who tipped you off,” James remarked as Stella walked over to him and scribbled something onto a piece of paper.
Then, she walked directly to Hawk, who stood and took her hand into his. “Whatever you need, we’ll help with, but I need to take her out of here for a while.”
