Page 50 of Broken Sins (Volkov Bratva 3)

The lone tear carving its way down her dirt-stained cheek becomes a flood of them. She doesn’t redden or sob, just cries silently like that as I watch her. If she is manipulating me, she is a master of her craft.

I think not. I hope not. I want to believe that this is Milaya Volkov nearing her breaking point, the point that will turn this whole war around for my family.

But I can’t be sure just yet.

“Please,” she begs, “just tell me what you want me to do. I’ll do it, I’ll do anything. Just don’t hurt her.”

Amazing,I think to myself. What kind of daughter has Luka Volkov raised? Perhaps he is not the ruthless killer that his reputation suggests. If this is his child—overflowing with compassion even for men who tried to rape her, for a friend who betrayed her—then perhaps I have overestimated my enemy. She is wracked with grief for the worst kind of man alive, the pig who takes what he has neither earned nor been given. She wants to protect a companion who stabbed her in the back. I can’t pretend to understand either impulse. But it amazes me nonetheless.

Is this the moment? Have we reached her breaking point far sooner than I anticipated? I see the liquid fear in her eyes and wonder if it is time to tell her she must now turn on her father. If I reveal what he has done, the full extent of his sins, then she will be putty in my hands, won’t she?

I don’t know. Fuck, I don’t know. I despise those words more than any others on this planet. I have to make a choice, right now. Tell her or don’t? Return her to her cell or make her my ally?

I make a choice.

But when I open my mouth to deliver it, the door at the end of the hallway clangs open. Vito comes storming in.

His nostrils flare and his brows form an angry V. “Get up,” he seethes. Milaya starts to struggle to her feet, but he holds up a hand. “Not you. Him.”

Goddammit. I sigh and rise gracefully to face him. Though I am younger, I am three inches taller, meaning I can look down into his eyes. He hates that, I know, the vain prick.

“You were not invited to this little powwow,fratello,” I say. I let a faint edge of mockery creep into my voice. He hates that too.

“You should not be here, Mateo.”

“I wasn’t aware that my movements were restricted now.”

“You know better.”

“Do I?”

“We do not make decisions on our own.”

“Once upon a time, perhaps not. Things are different now.”

He growls. I know he wants to hit me. It is written on his face, in the clench of his fists at his side, the set of his jaw. A younger Vito would not have thought twice about striking me. He is different now than he once was. Our father’s death has aged him decades in a mere few days.

“Put her back,” he hisses. “Then meet me in the great room. So we can have a ‘powwow’ of our own.”

He stalks away before I can answer. The door slams shut behind him forcefully.

I turn to face Milaya, who is still seated on the floor. “Come,” I tell her. “Time for you to go home.”

I make her walk in front of me as we wind back to her cell. She steps inside willingly, keeping the blanket tight around her shoulders to hide her nakedness.

She pivots in place before the door shuts and looks at me. “You don’t have to do this,” she says in a soft voice.

“Do what?”

“Any of it.”

“This choice was made a long time ago, Milaya.”

Then I shut the door in her face. I try to forget her words as I go upstairs to argue more with Vito.

But I can’t.

15

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