Page 46 of Broken Sins (Volkov Bratva 3)

My thoughts slink downstairs, to be with the Volkov girl in the dungeon. She knows what I mean when I talk about wars of the mind, about knowledge as a sword. It took only a glimpse into her hazel eyes to see the intelligence that glimmers there. Who sneaks out of a cell and eavesdrops on her captors instead of running for the hills? The answer: someone who wants to know how to strike back. Someone who wants not just freedom, but revenge.

We need to tread carefully with her. There is no telling how much she heard, what conclusions she has drawn from the snatches of conversation she witnessed.

But my initial hunch still stands, I think, though my siblings refuse to see it through my eyes. If she can be persuaded to cooperate, then she will become an invaluable asset. However, with how Dante and Vito are proceeding—trying to frighten her or bludgeon her into submission—I think it is more likely that she will end up hurting us when all this is said and done.

I tighten my fist on the arm of my chair. If my brothers don’t listen to me, we might all end up going the way of our father. The Russians are ruthless. My research into their operations has shined a light onto an organization that moves silently and efficiently. They are as loyal as they are vicious.

And now they are coming for us.

Truth be told, this has been in the cards for a long time now. Ten years have passed since they first struck. This didn’t start last week—it started long before Father lost his way.

In fact, the event that ignited our hatred for the Russians may have been what broke his mind in the first place.

* * *

TEN YEARS AGO

I was waiting outside on the street corner. A luxury apartment building rose into the night behind me. “I am here,” I said into my cell phone.

An intermittent drizzle had begun to come down from the heavens, masking the earliest dawn light, so I turned up my collar against the rain and shoved my free hand into my pocket. A black car purred around the corner and came to a stop in front of me. The back door swung open to reveal Dante’s grinning face. He had only one piercing back then, the ring above his eyebrow, and his neck was still bare, though he’d been making noise about getting it tattooed, if only to thumb his nose at Father.

“How was she?” he cackled at me, waggling his tongue suggestively.

“A gentleman never tells,” I answered soberly as I clambered into the back seat. My serious face lasted all of five seconds before I broke into a smile. Within the car, my brothers all started laughing along with me. Vito was behind the wheel, Leo sat in the front passenger seat, and Sergio, Dante, and I were all crammed into the back.

It had been a raucous night. An auction in Beverly Hills had turned into drinks at Vertex, a nightclub downtown in which Father owned an interest. That, in turn, had led to an after-party of sorts at the VIP room of the city’s premier strip club. At the end of it all, my brothers and I each took home a girl or two to satisfy the carnal cravings that our partying had stirred up. Now, with the dawn approaching, it was time to go home. Thus, “the wagon”—our joking name for this nightly round-up ride—arriving to pick me up.

Leo looked drowsy, slumped in his seat. He had taken a pair of dancing girls back to a suite at the Four Seasons. They must have drained him thoroughly.

“Good night, Leo?” I asked, leaning forward to clap him on the shoulder.

He merely grunted in response.

Seated to my left, Dante was a ball of energy. He had purchased a new knife recently and seemed to think that we would all be impressed by his twirling it around in his hands like a snake charmer. “So tell us how you fared,” he drawled. “I bet that blonde was a shot of life.”

“More plastic in her than the Pacific Ocean,” I retorted. “Though still less dangerous than the coven of witches you went cavorting off with.”

He grinned. He’d found himself a strange trio of gothic girls, all pale skin and dark hair with far too much makeup on. There was no telling what kind of strange and fucked-up shit they had gotten into. Even at his young age—scarcely nineteen years old—he had peculiar tastes. “Oh, I had myself a fun night, don’t you worry.”

On the far side of the vehicle, both Sergio and Vito were quiet and brooding. I had often thought that they both had too much of Father in them. Too prone to inner darkness. Even after a night of drinking and sex and fun, a night of being kings of the city, they each looked like someone had just run over the family dog. I decided to leave them alone.

It was a long ride from downtown back up to the Castle. I watched the city pass us by as we wound up the hills. Lights glimmered in the darkness like gems studded into a sheet of velvet.

By the time we pulled into the drive, I was nearly asleep.

Something caught my eye as we parked. It was a dark bundle of sorts, slumped at the corner of the stone steps that led up to the grand front entrance, lying just out of the light.

“Stop,” I ordered Vito. He braked the car at once. All of us reached for our weapons instinctively.

“What is it?” he asked me. But I was already out of the car and racing towards the bundle with my gun drawn.

I knew before I had even gotten halfway there that it was a dead body.

The only question that remained was,Whose was it?

I held a breath to fight back the stench of decay and rot that emanated in waves from the corpse. It had been dead for a few days at least. Reaching forward, I grabbed the shoulder and rolled it over.

“Fuck!” I growled, leaping back.

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