Page 182 of Shattered Altar (Makarova Bratva Duet)

ALEKS

I should have kissed her.

Maybe I would have—if it weren’t for the nightmare unspooling its way into my life. A nightmare only I can deal with.

A nightmare that now involves my mother and her poor choices.

She’s waiting for me in my office just like I told her to. Her expression is calm, but her frame quivers with unspoken tension. She looks longingly towards the bar.

“If you want a drink,” I say, “I can pour you one.”

“Do I need it?” she asks shrewdly.

“Yes.”

“Aleksandr,” she says, paling visibly, “what’s going on?”

I look her in the eye, ready to decipher every expression that passes across her face. That’s where the answers will be. God knows her words can no longer be trusted. “Donald fucking Hargrove is what’s going on.”

She looks genuinely confused for a moment. “Donald?” she repeats, as though she’s worried she’s misheard me. “I don’t understand. What about him?”

“Why don’t you tell me?”

“I… he’s my friend.”

“So you’ve said. What else?”

Her confusion shifts to fear. “What have you found out about him?”

“Answer the question, Mother.”

“I know that he’s a powerful man with a lot of connections,” she says. “We’re friends and we have been for a while now, but he’s been very successful for a very long time. I doubt I know everything about him and his past.”

I cock my head to the side. “Do you know why the Makarova name started floating around the FBI?”

Her eyes go wide as realization dawns. “Donald? No. You’re saying that Donald is the one that tipped them off?”

I nod slowly. “He didn’t just offer one tip. He made it his fucking job. Anytime the case looked like it was stagnating, he came in with another scoop, another hint, another suggestion about where to look and when.”

“It can’t be.”

“Why?” I demand. “Why this loyalty? Why the need to defend the man?”

“Doesn’t friendship mean anything to you?” she asks. “Wouldn’t you defend Demyan if someone accused him of such horrible things?”

“I would forgive him many things. But betraying the Bratva? Not even Demyan would survive that.”

“Are you suggesting that I’ve betrayed this family?” she asks in outrage. “That I’ve concealed who was trying to hurt us?”

“It depends. Did you?”

“How dare you! I would never. He would never.”

I look at her in disbelief. “You are not that fucking naïve.”

“Aleksandr, you don’t know the man. He is what he seems: an honest, good-hearted, hard-working businessman. He built his empire from scratch. He donates to charity.”

“And I’m sure he rescues kittens out of trees in his free time,” I snap. “Open your fucking eyes, Mother. A man like that doesn’t get to the top without stepping on more than a few necks.”

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