Page 65 of Immaculate Deception (Romanoff Bratva)

Inside, the jarring, pulsing music is harsh on my ears. The flashing strobes are equally as annoying. I grit my teeth and try to ignore it all.

As I do, a silly little memory flashes through my head.

Arya’s eyes, soft in her lap. Her hand on my shoulder. “I hate silence.”

I wrench myself back to the present. I can’t afford to lose focus now.

I scan the room, looking for my brother. But before I can finish a whole sweep, a hand taps me on the shoulder. When I turn around, it’s a man I don’t recognize. Bald with meticulously groomed facial hair cut into sharp lines around his jaw and mouth.

Definitely one of my brother’s men. He looks like a classic Ilyasov stooge—equal parts brainless and violent. He curls his finger for me to follow him.

The man leads me through a side door and into a narrow hallway. I touch my hip when his back is turned just to make sure my gun is in place.

As soon as the door closes behind me, the music fades to little more than a distant murmur. This area is well-insulated. “So no one can hear my brother’s guests screaming, I bet,” I growl under my breath.

The goateed man looks over at me with narrowed eyes but says nothing. He walks to the far end of the hallway, raps his knuckles twice on a door, and then pushes it open for me to walk inside.

I pause at the threshold.

Ilyasov Romanoff is sitting behind a desk.

His feet are kicked up on the wooden top and he’s leaned back in the chair, arms crossed over his chest, a big smile on his face.

“Mladshiy brat.Little brother! How nice to see you.” Ilyasov throws his arms wide but makes no move to get up. When I don’t respond after a few seconds, he gestures to the chair across from him. “Sit.”

I move forward, but I don’t sit. Not yet. Behind me, the door to the office clangs closed.

Ilyasov looks so much like he did the last time I saw him—and yet completely different at the same time. He has the same boxy build as our father, short and broad. And the same close-cropped hair he’s worn from the time he was a teenager.

His eyes are as calculating as ever. They see everything. Miss nothing.

The rest of him, however, is changed. He’s covered in tattoos that peek out from beneath the collar and cuffs of his starched white dress shirt. Even his face is tattooed.

If Mother could see him, she would weep. It’s a good thing she’s dead.

“I must say, I was surprised to hear your voice,” he comments. “I almost did not believe it. After all this time, what could Dima Romanoff want from his pathetic big brother?”

“Your words, Ilyasov. Not mine.”

He wags his finger with a playful frown on his face. “Nah, nah, those areyourwords. Big brother can forgive, but he never forgets.”

“It’s been ten years.”

“Ten years of silence. Ten years of estrangement. How can anything be solved without communication, little brother?”

I’m not sure what angle he’s taking here. We both know damn well what happened ten years ago. Why things were left the way they were.

I choose my words carefully. “I think I communicated things to you pretty clearly ten years ago,starshiy brat. It is not my fault that you didn’t like what I had to say.”

Ilyasov’s smile tightens at the corners. His relaxed position suddenly looks strained, rehearsed. “Who’s blaming? I’m not. Besides, blame for what? We found our own ways, did we not, brother? I hold no grudges.”

Bullshit.But if he wants to pretend, I’m happy to play along.

“Nor do I.”

“Bah!” Ilyasov runs his tongue over his teeth and waves his hand dismissively. “Enough talk of the past. Let’s move forward. To what do I owe the pleasure? You just miss me so much you had to drop by?”

I’d be shocked if Ilyasov doesn’t already know what’s going on with the Bratva back in New York.

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