Page 28 of Sins He Taught Me (Bratva Crime Syndicate 3)

Matvei

I’m standing outside of Niko’s psychiatrist’s office, waiting for his appointment to be over, when my phone buzzes.

“What?” I demand.

Timofei, on the other end, has nothing to say that I want to hear. By the time he finishes telling me what happened—that Faddei, one of our best collectors, is dead; that the vigilante struck us again; that one of our debtors, Daniel Elwood, was bailed out of his payment pick-up by this masked man who thinks he’s a superhero—my rage is near boiling.

When Niko emerges, I snatch him up, say the briefest of goodbyes to the doctor, and roar towards home in my car.

We pull into the garage. I kill the engine, step out, and walk around to help Niko out of his seatbelt. I notice with a grimace that he’s spilled Cheez-Itz crumbs all over the backseat. It should be a fucking crime to rub orange cracker dust all over the Italian leather upholstery of a three hundred-thousand-dollar convertible, but such is my life as of late.

“Come on, Niko,” I say. He’s fighting me with the seatbelt, making things more difficult. I take it that the appointment did not go well.

That’s hardly a surprise. Nothing seems to be going well these days.

“No!” he snaps. “I don’t wanna!” His little brow is furrowed with the mightiest anger he can summon.

I almost want to laugh, but even now, in the midst of my own anger, I can see the same familial traces in his face that are coursing through mine. The dark, stormy eyes, the clenched jaw. He truly is a Morozov. I wish, not for the first time, that my brother was still here to see him.

But right now, I’m in no mood to put up with a child’s tantrums. I tug him out of the seat forcefully.

I try to put him on the ground to walk with me into the house, but he has apparently decided that his legs don’t work. He drops to the ground like a man taking a bullet and starts to cry.

“I want my daddy!”

Again, I feel the harsh twinge of sympathy, along with a curdling of longing to reprimand him like I would one of my own soldiers.

But I don’t have time to navigate this meltdown.

Scooping him up, I sling the boy over one shoulder and march inside. One of the maids—Luciana? Arielle? I can never remember which one is which—greets me to take my coat. Instead, I slump Niko into her waiting arms.

She’s surprised, but hides it gamely. “Give him a bath,” I order. I feel bad—this is not exactly in her job description—but I need to deal with other, more pressing matters than the fickle moods of a five-year-old.

The maid nods and wisely retreats without another word. I can hear Niko sniffling long after they have rounded the corner towards his wing of the house. I storm into my office and slam the door shut behind me. I immediately take to pacing back and forth across the carpet, trying to contain my anger.

He’s back. The fucking vigilante is back. He’s still out there, rearing his ugly fucking head again. I want him dead. I want him to suffer for everything he’s done. To my family. To my business.

And now, Faddei is gone because of him. One of our best men out on a simple assignment: get the money this bastard owes us. He would’ve been back by now, had it not been for this vigilante finding his way into the mix.

Every nerve inside of me is on fire. I feel like a viper reeling back, consumed by the urge to strike. My fingers twitch, eager to swipe my desk clean. To break whatever I can get my hands on. I want to destroy this office and everything in it.

There’s a knock at the door, then it opens. One of my soldiers, Miron, coming to report on what he’s heard on the police scanner. My eyes slide to him, narrow and stern.

I don’t say a word, but he gets the message. Speak.

“He’s gone,” he says.

I clench my teeth. “How?”

“I don’t know. The police are saying he left out the back door, but they haven’t found a trace of him yet. He disappeared right before the girl called the cops.”

My hand is lightning quick, snatching up a tumbler half full of whiskey and hurling it towards the wall. It shatters instantly, staining the white wallpaper. Rivulets of amber liquid race down to the carpet, where they’ll inevitably leave stains.

Miron flinches but keeps his eyes trained to the floor.

“Get them,” I order.

“The man and his daughter?”

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