Page 157 of Immaculate Deception (Romanoff Bratva)

When I push the door open, my breath is stolen.

Standing in the middle of the room is the crib Brigitte and I picked out for Lukas. The one she helped me build in my apartment.

Hanging above it is the outer space mobile we picked out online.

The walls are covered in the art she helped me choose.

The shock of seeing my son’s nursery in another woman’s house gives me pause for a moment—until I remember why I’m here.

I rush forward, desperately hoping to find him lying in the crib.

But it’s empty.

My heart sinks. I spin around towards the hallway. I should be working harder to be quiet, but I’m too desperate to care. Too desperate to be careful.

I turn into the hallway, heading for Brigitte’s room, but I pull up short. A noise from behind me that sounded a lot like…

I whirl around.

There’s someone standing in the hall.

A surprised scream rises in my throat. But before it can materialize, Brigitte raises her arm and cracks something hard and heavy over the top of my head.

And everything goes dark.

55

Dima

The Butcher’s Library

“Dima Romanoff?” The Butcher chuckles. He grins, proud of himself. He caught himself a don. Quite a feat. “Do you know me?”

“The Butcher.”

He bobs his head back and forth. “It’s one of my names. Though not my favorite. It’s a little cheesy, no?”

I see Gennady roll his eyes in the hallway. If I wasn’t one slip of a finger away from being shot in the forehead, I’d laugh.

“In my experience, people who’ve earned impressive titles don’t ever seem to need them.”

The Butcher’s jaw tightens, but his smile stays in place. “Awfully patronizing for a man who fled his city and now finds himself on the wrong end of a gun, Don Romanoff.”

“You’re a talkativemudak,aren’t you?”

He shrugs, then turns and looks up above the fireplace. “Do you like my portrait? I just had it done. The whole family, all together. My woman. My son. Impressive, no?”

His son?For a second, I see red.

I know he’s trying to bait me. Trying to trick me into doing something rash. This is part of his fun. I won’t let him have any.

“What do you want?” I ask, tired of talking around the subject. “You know who I am. You know the kind of money and power I have. What do you want?”

The Butcher throws his head back and laughs. “You? Money and power? Word on the streets now is that you’re nobody. You don’t even have your own Bratva. It’s been stolen out from underneath you.”

I shake my head. “When a hijacker takes control of the plane, you don’t call him the new pilot. You cut his fucking throat and throw him overboard, then take back the controls. That’s exactly what I intend to do. That’s what I’m doing right now.”

“Why would Zotov relinquish control?” The Butcher ponders. “He has your Bratva, and he has the Albanians’ partnership. Together, we’re taking the operation to new heights.”

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