Don’t touch me.
Psychopath.
I don’t hate you.
Yes, daddy.
Your little slut.
No, your fuckingqueen.
My blood is running so goddamn high sifting through this mess I can’t untangle that I am still going close to eighty when I whip up to the dock. Lochlan and Roan jump out of the way dramatically—like I’d ever fucking hit them—and I drift to stop.1
The port has been evacuated of all personnel not in our association, making the usually busy dock oddly quiet. Even at night, there are usually cranes moving shipping containers, forklifts carrying crates, and any number of people shouting orders. But now, it feels like a shipping graveyard. The rows of cargo lined up are silent, except for the light chatter of my soldiers behind us.
The spotlight usually flooding where we stand is instead trained on three barges in the bay and two people in a speed boat puttering around. “Has he been inside of them yet?”
Roan answers me with the shake of his head. “We thought it may be more fun to wait for an audience.” I grin. Roan can be a little bitch sometimes, but he has a smart, wicked side to him that would make most people run for the hills. I guess we all have that side, some of us are just better at hiding it…or rather, controlling it. Lochlan is the most like me. He has tight reins on his darkness and lets the world see the charming kid. Finneas is a fucking black cloud all the damn time.
Our father was a loose cannon. You never knew which side you were going to get. Which is probably what made him such an effective leader, people fell in line because there was no way to predict which Aiden Fox you’d get when you stepped out of line.
“How high up is he?” I ask, referring to the man they nabbed from the streets earlier today who is now in the speed boat with Finneas.
“Foot soldier, dispensable.” Roan smirks like he knows where my thought process is going. I’m doing this to stop a war, but sometimes blood needs to be shed in the name of peace. I’ll leave it up to them.
If this were any other situation, I’d rain down hell on the Bratva. But being a king isn’t about how much enemy blood you can spill. A strong king always does what’s best for his kingdom and its people. And wars are damn expensive—both in money and blood.
My top priority is keeping my queen safe and teaching the Russians that it's a costly mistake going after the Fox family. And it looks like the lesson is about to begin.
Headlights beam down the access road from the two large SUVs racing toward us. My men straighten up and stand behind me and my brothers, their arms and hands pointedly positioned on the assault rifles slung across their chests. Lochlan keeps his jacket on to conceal the fact that his arm is still in a sling, but Roan shrugs his off, making sure his shoulder holster packed with two handguns is obvious.
It’s bad taste to show up to meet guns in hand, so I keep my piece tucked away in my waistband. I don’t give a damn about mobster etiquette for this meet, though. We are doing them a favor, we are not equals looking to negotiate. I want them to know they are walking a very fine line.
Three men get out of each car, and I have to laugh at the fact that Koslov and his second are in fucking tracksuits. Goddamn caricatures of themselves. “Where’s my man, Fox?”
“Taking a lil boat ride with my brother.” I nod my head to the bay.
“Tell me why I shouldn’t kill you right now,” he growls, and I have to give it to him, he’s a man of conviction if nothing else about him is redeemable.
“Koslov, I’m giving you the opportunity of a lifetime—no, of a whole generation. Because if you don’t shut up and listen, we will go to war, and you will be decimated. You targeted my family, and I cannot allow that to happen. Since this is all over a misunderstanding—”
“Misunderstanding? You lying—” I whip my gun from my waistband and hold it out, one-handed, straight at Koslov.
“Did I not just tell you to shut up and listen? C’mon old man, you’re hearing can’t be that bad already.” His men scramble to pull their pieces out, but Koslov wisely waves them off.
“You hit our restaurant, we hit three of yours. That was just simple tit for tat, nothing personal. Butthis”—I hold the back of my tattooed hand up—“and this idea thatI’mthe June Harbor Slayer is nothing but nonsense. And because you were sorely misinformed, I’ll give you the chance to come to your senses and let me prove to you it wasn’t me.”
“I won’t believe a word from a snake like you.” I laugh to myself at the irony of him calling me a snake when my tattoo clearly shows a snake has nothing on a Fox.
“I thought you may say something like that,” I say, and Roan speaks into a walkie-talkie. I hear the engine of the boat roar to life. Seconds later, Koslov’s phone rings from his pocket. “You’re gonna wanna answer that.”
He raises the phone to his face and answers the video call.“Zdraviya zhelayu,”says the man on the boat with Finn.
“Ty v poryadke?”Koslov replies, and I groan, I don’t have time for these pleasantries.
“Da—”
“Finneas, just show him the goddamn container,” I shout, wanting to be heard through the call.