ANTON
I stare at the spot where Jessa’s silhouette disappeared almost an hour ago.
I’ve taken a risk letting her leave, but I wasn’t kidding about being able to control her. I don’t usually have a problem controlling anyone.
Except, of course, the bitch this yacht was named after.
“Are you worried she’s going to turn into another Medusa?” Lev asks, coming eerily close to reading my thoughts.
I turn to him, catching a sudden gust of sea air. “No. This one is different.”
“Is that you talking? Or your dick?”
“Are you mistaking me for my brother?” I demand.
“I resent that,” Yulian complains as he joins us on the upper deck. “Maybe my dick happens to be extremely smart, and that’s why I listen to it.”
I have less than zero desire to talk about Jessa or justify my decisions with either one of them.
“The body is gone?” I ask before I correct myself. “The bodies, rather.”
“Gone,” Lev confirms. “Moved to our incinerator across town. In an hour, there won’t be anything left of Omer Solomon, Benyamin Meninsky, or his son.”
“If the little shit had kept his head, he might have lived.” Yulian shakes his head as though he thinks the boy’s killing was a waste.
“His death is on Benyamin,” I say coldly. “The man decided to betray me and bring his idiot son along on the same night. It was a stupid move.”
“The worse move was choosing the Ivanovs over us,” Lev says.
I nod in agreement. “There aren’t many moves worse than that.”
“You really think that Rodion had anything to do with this?” Yulian ponders.
I glare at my younger brother, wondering how he could be so thick-headed. “The man has been a masterpiece in passive aggression since the funeral.”
Yulian flinches at my tone. “Exactly. Passive aggressive. This move is more, I dunno… active aggressive.”
“Except he didn’t move against us,” I point out. “Not obviously, at least. He had Benyamin do his dirty work so that we’d be stuck with faulty guns when the time comes.”
“‘When the time comes’?” Yulian repeats. “What is that supposed to mean?”
I ignore him. “There’s nothing to directly connect Rodion with the defective weapons or the fucked-up sale. He made sure that Benyamin would be the one in the line of fire. Literally and figuratively.”
“Rodion is nothing if not shrewd,” Lev points out.
“Which is exactly why we need to nip this thing in the bud.”
“How do you propose we do that?” Lev asks.
“I’ll need to meet with the man.”
Lev and Yulian exchange a dubious glance. Yulian speaks up first. “You want to meet with your father-in-law?” he asks.
“Why not?” I ask innocently. “I have nothing to hide. I didn’t kill his daughter.”
“You can see why that might be a smidge hard to believe…” Yulian warns.
I narrow my eyes at him. “What are you trying to say, brother?”