Page 8 of Hunted By the Masked BRATVA
"Troskoy made a deal with my father," I say instead. "Promised him a partnership in a new territory. Clean money, he said. Legitimate business."
Konstantin's jaw tightens. He knows where this is going.
"It was a lie. Troskoy was running guns through the territory, using my father's name as cover. When the authorities started investigating, Troskoy decided loose ends needed to be tied up." I finish the drink, set the glass down with a careful click. "He came to our home just as we were starting our dinner. Shot my father first. Then my brothers."
"And you?"
"I was in the kitchen. I heard the gunfire. Ran through." The memory is crystalline, perfect in its horror. "Troskoy shot me in the chest. Left me bleeding on top of my youngest brother's body."
Silence stretches between us.
"The scar," Konstantin says quietly.
I press my hand against the spot, feeling the ridge of tissue beneath silk. "Collapsed lung. Damaged my heart. The surgeon said I was lucky to survive."
"Lucky." He says it like the word is broken glass in his mouth.
"That's what everyone said." I lean back against the couch, suddenly exhausted. "Lucky Emilia. Lucky to be alive. Lucky to have survived when her entire family didn't."
"You don't feel lucky."
"I feel angry." The truth spills out before I can stop it. "I feel like I should have died with them. And I feel like the only reason I'm still breathing is to make sure Troskoy pays for what he did."
Konstantin is quiet for a long moment, studying me with those wolf eyes.
"So you spent six years planning how to kill him," he says finally.
"I spent six years becoming someone he wouldn't recognize." I gesture at myself. The elegant dress, the careful makeup, the woman who looks nothing like the girl who bled out in her father's house. "I learned to code. To hack. To ghost through systems that are supposed to be impenetrable. I found every piece of Troskoy's empire and mapped it, documented it, understood it."
"And tonight you decided poison was the answer."
"Tonight was supposed to be the end." I hear the bitterness in my own voice. "Quick. Clean. No one would even know it was murder until he was already dead."
"Except I saw you."
"Except you saw me."
Konstantin stands, paces to the window. The city lights beyond cast his silhouette in sharp relief, all predatory grace and coiled violence.
"Poison is the coward's weapon," he says, his back to me.
Fury ignites in my chest. "Excuse me?"
"You heard me." He turns, and there's something fierce in his expression. "You spent six years preparing for this moment. Six years becoming dangerous. And you were going to kill him with poison? Let him die confused and alone, never knowing who finally caught up to him?"
"That was the point—"
"The point is you're better than that." He closes the distance between us in three strides, and suddenly he's towering over me, intense and overwhelming. "Troskoy took everything from you. He took your family, your home, your life. And you were going to take his life with a substance he couldn't even taste?"
I surge to my feet, bringing us chest to chest. "What would you have me do? March up to him and shoot him in the face? Get myself killed for revenge?"
"I'd have you destroy him." The words are fierce, certain. "Not just his life. Everything. His reputation. His empire. His legacy. I'd have you make him understand exactly what he did and exactly what it cost him."
"And how am I supposed to do that?" I'm shaking now, from anger or adrenaline or the way he's looking at me like I'm something rare and deadly. "I'm one woman. He has an army. That’s why I entered The Hunt. If I’d have won, I would have ordered him dead."
"You're not just one woman." Konstantin's hand comes up, cups my jaw. "You're a Markov. You have your father's blood. And from what you've just told me, you have skills Troskoy can't even comprehend."
His thumb brushes across my cheekbone, and the touch sends electricity down my spine.
