53
IVAN
I tap the screen in front of me and watch a tiny hourglass flip and turn three times before it connects. Then three video windows appear.
“What the fuck is she doing here?” I growl.
Francia is sitting in front of the camera with one leg tucked up into her chair and a steaming cup of coffee in her hands. She looks way too casual and way too alive for my liking.
“I’m not happy about this, either,” she snaps.
She’s obviously not talking to me. So I shift my attention to the third screen: Mikhail and Konstantin Sokolov.
They look like ghouls lurking in the dark. The two men are so pale the camera doesn’t quite know what to do with them. The brightness shifts and flares, trying to find something to focus on until Mikhail flips on a light behind the camera.
The light highlights the bruise I left under his right eye. I can practically see the outline of my knuckles along his eye socket. There’s a long scrape on his nose and chin from where he skidded across the concrete.
Serves the motherfucker right.
“Things have changed,” Konstantin says. “I thought it would be a good idea to touch base and make sure everyone understands what is at stake.”
“Nothing has changed. I’m going to kill you all.”
Allowing Cora to make the call to let Francia live was the right choice. I stand by it. But I’ll still fantasize about choking the life out of her until the day she is dead.
“And there is why we can’t meet in person,” Francia sighs. “All this violence is bad for negotiations, Ivan.”
“I have no intention of negotiating.”
“We don’t want to negotiate, either,” Konstantin agrees. “The time for that has passed.”
Francia frowns at the screen. “Then what is this? The last time we talked, we were going to—”
“The last time we talked, Francia, you brought some information to our attention. Some crucial information.”
“And you returned the favor by not prepping me for this meeting,” she snaps. “I’m not feeling real ‘crucial’ over here.”
They can bicker all they want, but I’m not interested in sitting in on their group therapy session. “Get to the point, Sokolov. What the fuck does any of this have to do with me?”
“This has everything to do with you.” Konstantin nudges Mikhail, who shifts out of frame. “This all started, for me, when my Katerina was promised to you. That deal was never finalized and I lost what would have been a solid investment.”
“Then I suggest you keep your kids on a tighter leash next time you want to exploit them for your own personal gain.”
Through the video call, it’s hard to tell if he’s fazed by the anger crackling off of me like toxic radiation. “This wasn’t just for my personal gain. A marriage to Katerina helped you, too. Your father wouldn’t have agreed to the match otherwise.”
“My father and I don’t always see eye to eye. He wanted a partnership with you; I want to bury you alive.”
Konstantin grimaces and folds his hands in front of him. “Regardless, your father and I made a deal and you agreed to it. You gave me your word that my daughter would be your bride.”
“Then your daughter disappeared. I can’t marry a missing person poster, so I don’t see why you’re wasting my time.”
“Did she disappear, though?” Konstantin muses.
He gestures to someone off-camera and suddenly, a figure barrels into the frame. There’s a dark pillowcase over their head.
A creeping feeling of dread rips through my gut. What the hell is going on?
“Well,” Konstantin presses when I say nothing, “did she? That’s what everyone said. You would know best, though. Was she missing, Ivan?”
He is bluffing. It’s a trick. He wants me to admit something, but I’m not stupid. There’s no way that he—no, I won’t even let myself think it.
I sit back in my chair. Breathe, motherfucker, I say in my head again and again, trying and failing to make myself relax even as everything inside of me goes rigid.
“I don’t have time for this, Konstantin. Say what you dragged us all here to say or I’m leaving.”
He just tuts and purses his lips again. “Well, you no longer have anyone to funnel money to via secret offshore accounts. Hopefully, that frees up enough time for you to listen to what I have to say.”
The dread doubles.
No. He didn’t find her. There’s no way.
Except there is always a way. If someone knew where to look… If they had a nudge in the right direction…
No. Even if he followed the money, he doesn’t have her. I would have heard by now. I would have known. I would have prevented it.
The cloaked figure next to Konstantin is shivering now.
“I could have all the time in the world and I still wouldn’t have time for this, Konstantin. Spit it out or I’m hanging up.”
He smiles acidly. Then, with a melodramatic flourish, he rips the pillowcase away from his prisoner. First, it’s nothing but a mess of long, tangled hair. Then Konstantin grabs the person by the neck and forces them into the camera.
There is no background visible now. No adjustment for the lens to make.
The entire screen is filled from corner to corner with the bruised, terrified face of Katerina Sokolov.
“Katerina,” I breathe. It’s so soft that the microphone doesn’t pick up the sound, but they can see my face.
She’s thin and pale, even considering that she shares the Sokolov family genes. Her hair is a riot of knots fanning out around her head. The mottled color in her face is half-bruising, half bags of sleep deprivation piling up beneath her eyes.
Suddenly, she’s jerked back. Mikhail appears, hovering over her shoulder.
“My Katerina has come home at last,” Konstantin croons. He drapes an arm around his daughter’s shivering shoulders. “I thought you two should be the first to know.”
“What the fuck, Konstantin?” Francia shrieks. Somehow, she looks even more shocked than I am.
“Joyous day, isn’t it?” Mikhail squats down looking just as smug as his father.
“This wasn’t—” Francia shakes her head and leans towards the camera. “I didn’t pass information along so you could—You weren’t supposed to bring her home. This ruins everything!”
It all clicks together. Truth slapping me in the face with a cold, hard hand. Francia delivered information about where the Sokolovs could find Katerina and, instead of rewarding her, they cut her off.
Now, Katerina will take her place at the altar with me. Whether she wants to or not.
“For you,” Mikhail corrects, shifting around so his smug face is between his father’s and sister’s. “It ruins everything for you, Francia. But you were always just a means to an end. Now, we have a new means. We have a new end. We don’t need you.”
“What do you want?” I grit the words out between clenched teeth.
Katerina won’t even look at the screen. Her eyes are locked on the table in front of her. Every time her father or brother get close, she flinches.
What did they do to you, Kat?
I gave her money and sent her away. She’s supposed to be off in her new life, away from all of this shit.
“I want what was promised to me,” Konstantin says sharply. “I want you to marry my daughter.”
“That’s not what we agreed to!” Francia shrieks.
I ignore her and shake my head. “That’s not going to happen.”
“Then she dies.”
Konstantin shrugs like it doesn’t matter either way to him. Like it’s not his own fucking daughter’s life that he’s tossing in the middle of the table like a poker chip.
“You wouldn’t fucking dare,” I snarl.
“I’m a businessman first and foremost, Ivan. If an asset isn’t serving me—if it’s dragging me down—I cut it loose.” He reaches over and tucks a lock of Katerina’s blonde hair behind her shoulder. “Not only did Katerina not marry you and bring an influx of cash and connections into our family, she fled. She disappeared and embarrassed us all. So either you make good on your deal and she becomes a benefit to me—or I kill her just to rid myself of the shame.”
“It would be easy,” Mikhail adds. “Everyone already thinks she is missing. No one knows she’s back. We could slit her throat and no one would know a thing.”
Francia waves her hand in the air. “I’d know. I’d tell everyone what you did.”
“You’d die, too,” Konstantin says. “No one would miss you.”
Francia tries to come up with a response, but there isn’t one. He’s right. She handed over all of her cards and now they don’t need her. Not when they have Katerina.
“You’re a sick fucking monster,” I rumble.
“I am a man making things right!” he roars, suddenly enraged. The blood in his cheeks turns him a sickly purple. “You think the world is yours. That you can give and take as you fucking please. But you will take what I give you. And my son will take back the woman you stole from him.”
I stiffen. “Cora does not belong to him.”
“She did!” Mikhail seethes. “Cora was promised to me the same way Katerina was promised to you.”
Konstantin nods. “As it stands now, you’re robbing me of two good matches for my children. I can’t take that kind of loss on the chin, Ivan. It has to be dealt with.”
I can’t give into this shit. Can’t show weakness. If the Sokolovs smell blood in the water, they’ll come for my throat. The Bratva is already in a tenuous position with the transfer of power from my father to me. There’s no telling what might happen if this shit breaks loose.
I lift my chin. “I refuse to be extorted by a mudak like you, Konstantin. So there—it’s dealt with. Why should I care if you kill your own daughter?”
At that, Katerina finally glances up. It’s only for a second, but her eyes flash towards the camera.
And there’s so much fear in them.
I hope to God she knows I’m bluffing.
“Maybe you don’t care,” Konstantin ponders. “Then again, if you didn’t care, you wouldn’t have made sure Katerina stayed hidden for so long. You wouldn’t have kept sending her money after she vanished. That’s how we tracked her, you know? We followed the money overseas. Breadcrumbs from you to her, laid out so neatly. Nice place you put her up in, but the doorman couldn’t keep my soldiers from breaking down her door and dragging her out by her hair.”
If I didn’t have decades of training, they’d see the emotion on my face. The fury. The guilt.
“You marry Katerina and Cora comes with me,” Mikhail chimes in. “All will move forward as it’s supposed to.”
I clench my fists under my desk. “Cora isn’t going anywhere with you. Ever.”
“Cora is mine,” Francia interjects.
She’s been quiet the last few minutes, but now, her teeth are bared and her eyes are dangerous slits. She looks every bit as crazy as I know she is.
“I’ll kill her for this,” she adds. “No one will get Cora except for me.”
Mikhail shrugs. “That could be fun to watch, too. After everything that bitch has put me through, it’s probably better for my reputation that I don’t marry her, anyway.”
He’s pretending to be cavalier, but I saw the rage in his eyes the other day. Mikhail is pissed. If he gets his hands on Cora, it won’t end well.
Konstantin slashes a hand through the air, cutting everyone off. “All that matters is that Ivan has to make a choice. Either he stays with Cora and I kill Katerina. Or he honors the promise he made, leaves Cora, and marries my daughter. What will it be, Ivan?”
It’s like choosing which gun I want to be shot with.
Either way, someone dies.
I know what I want to do, but the way Katerina keeps looking up at the camera… I can hear her voice in my head. Same as it was the day she came to me and begged to be set free.
Help me, Ivan. Please.
I’m trying to drum up a plan that can solve all of this when I hear a squeaky floorboard in the hallway outside my office.
“I need time to think,” I snap.
Konstantin shakes his head. “You’ve had enough time. Decide now or—”
“Tomorrow.”
“Ivan,” he growls. “We aren’t playing games here. We will kill her if you don’t—”
“I’m not playing a game, either. If you want to do this right, let’s do this right. We’ll finalize details tomorrow. Over dinner.”
The doorknob to my office starts to turn and I don’t wait for a response. I slam the laptop closed just as Cora steps inside.