Page 20 of Sins He Taught Me (Bratva Crime Syndicate 3)

* * *

“Probational status,” I say in a low, dangerous voice.

If this welfare woman was one of my soldiers, she’d known that that tone meant she should run very, very far away from me.

But she doesn’t. Maybe she knows what I’m learning—that I can scare these counselors away from here again and again, but there will always be another one. And another. And another. Like a fucking plague of locusts.

“Yes, Mr. Morozov, probational status,” the woman—I think she said her name is Helen something—says firmly. She’s got a nasty furrow in her brow. “You’ve got a week to make some—I’m being generous to call them this—changes in your life and home. Otherwise, I’m coming to take Nikolas away and put him somewhere more suitable.”

Helen stands up and tucks her file folder under her arm. I’m still rubbing the busted knuckle in my hand. I can feel the blood on my face drying too.

“Get things in order, Mr. Morozov,” she says distastefully. “You don’t have much time.”

She strides out with a haughty tilt in her chin, leaving me alone in the sitting room.

God. Fucking. Dammit.

This is the last thing I needed. On any normal day, I’ve got a sprawling business to run. A business that has roots in every shadowy corner of the city and demands my undivided attention to keep it operating smoothly. When mistakes get made in my line of work, people die. Add to that this vigilante bastard and the loss of my brother and his wife, and things are already teetering on a knife’s edge.

So getting lectured like a misbehaving child from this weak, pathetic social worker isn’t exactly a welcome turn to my afternoon.

Another nanny won’t work. Even the best that the nannying agency sent to me couldn’t cut it. I need someone who can’t quit.

I sigh. “Yaroslav!” I call out. The youngest of my brigadiers comes hurrying into the room. He’s a tall, skinny man, built like a scarecrow with a prominent Adam’s apple. But he’s a good man. Perceptive, diligent, and above all—loyal.

“Yes, sir?” he asks me respectfully.

“You have a new responsibility.”

“Anything you need, Matvei.”

I point down the hall, where Niko is playing in his room. “You watch the boy, around the clock.”

Yaroslav does a double-take. “I’m sorry, sir?”

My gaze swivels up and skewers him. “Was part of that unclear?”

He gulps. “Watch the boy. Understood.”

He lingers for a moment, unsure of what happens next. I jerk my head in the direction of Nikolas’s room. “Starting now.”

Yaroslav nods crisply and disappears. I sit in the room for a long time after he’s gone—thinking. Always thinking.

* * *

THE NEXT DAY

“Did you hear that, Matvei?” Timofei asks me.

I blink, turning my attention back to him. Everyone in my meeting room stares at me expectantly, and I sit up straighter, clearing my throat.

“No,” I admit. “Start over.”

“I was saying that this vigilante is doing a damn good job of staying invisible. We haven’t heard from him or seen him since he killed—er, since the accident. He disappeared. We’re trying to track him down, but it’s hard. There weren’t many clues at the warehouse after the explosion.”

“Go fucking figure,” I mutter, shaking my head. All our leads might’ve turned out to be dead ends, but I haven’t given up hope of finding him. I know that he’s out there somewhere. I know he’s hiding, probably because he understands that he just fucked with the wrong family. The safest bet for him would be to stay gone for good. Retire the Justice Killer identity and go back to his normal life, whatever that is. Pray that I never pick up his trail.

But disappearing will not be so easy. The whole state is talking about him. Everyone wants to know his identity. That kind of notoriety isn’t something you can just give up so easily. It’s addictive, and sure as I know how addicts behave, I know that he’ll come out once again.

---