2
KIRILL
All traces of Henry Madison were gone by the time I got to the warehouse. Seeing Mallory’s father shot dead in front of me last night had broken something inside me.
I’d hunted Mallory down and finally found her after seven years of missing her, hating her, and blaming her for everything that had dragged me into darkness. I could no longer blame her, and I no longer wanted to.
It was time to let the past go.
With Mallory at my side, I could finally do that. Sure, my once bright future as a track star was long behind me, and my hands were too blood-stained to consider living a non-bratva life, but that didn’t mean I had to be a threatened heir of my father’s empire, battling my brother for the title.
It was time to rid myself of Viktor Chernov, my father and agingpakhanof the Chernov bratva, and Nikolai, my lunatic half-brother, once and for all.
Viktor might have lasted longer if he hadn’t been so hellbent on pushing me into an arranged marriage with the daughter of a rival family. I had no intention of marrying Sofia De Sanctis, and I was done pretending I was considering it.
“Where is he?” I asked Ivan, my bodyguard. He and his younger brother, Max, were my two closest friends in the brotherhood and the only ones who knew my true intentions toward my father.
“On ice in the basement. I didn’t know what you wanted to do with him.”
It was no secret that I hated Henry.
From the tender age of seventeen, when I’d first met Mallory and fallen irrevocably in love with her, I’d hated her father. He’d been an abusive piece of human filth, and the world was a better place without him; however, despite that being clear as day, Mallory had never truly hated him. She liked to act tough, but her heart was softer than she wanted anyone to know.
The usual method for getting rid of the bodies killed in the line of bratva work was to dissolve them or staple rocks inside their chests and let them sink to the bottom of the Hudson. Neither were particularly dignified final resting places.
“Bury him. Bury him for Mallory,” I told Ivan.
He nodded, accepting my edict without question. While he’d deny it since he valued his life, he had developed a soft spot for my Molly. I’d set his brother, Max, to watch her. My inner circle consisted of Max, his brother, Ivan, and Pyotr; they were the only ones I trusted to protect the most important thing in my life.
Ivan answered a call as I sat in the creaking desk chair in the old office my father used at times, including when he’d blown out my knee at the tender age of nineteen, dooming me to the life he’d dreamed for me.
His entire body went rigid as his face paled. Alarm blew through me as Ivan raised his blue eyes to mine.
“What is it?” I asked, immediately alert.
“It’s Max,” Ivan said quietly. This morning Max had been on guard at The Tower, as usual. Icy dread crawled through me as I listened. “He’s in the hospital. He—they were attacked at the penthouse.”
I stood, rounding the desk, my heart hammering in my ears in a terrible, droning roar.“Tell me.”
Ivan hesitated.“Max was shot, but he survived. The rest didn’t. Mallory—” he trailed off.
I grabbed him, unable to contain my furious worry for one more second. “Mallory, what?” I growled. My eyes dared him to tell me she was dead.
“She’s gone. He took her.”
“Who?” I already knew who, but I asked anyway, needing confirmation.
“Your brother. Nikolai took her.”
The words sank through my aching heart like stones. I released Ivan, but my hand remained on his shoulder, and I squeezed. He took it for the apology I intended.
Taken wasn’t dead. Relief eased my fury a notch and allowed me to breathe.Taken wasn’t dead.
My brother had jumped places with my father to the top of the people-to-kill list. When I found him, and I wouldn’t stop until I did, only one of us would walk away.
“Go see Max. He’ll be upset that he failed to protect her. It’s not his fault. Niko . . . I will handle Nikolai when we find him, which we will.”
“You’re going to kill him?”