2
Eric
Present day
“Boss, she’s awake,” Borya informs me, walking into my office.
The same uneasiness I feel is etched into the hard lines of his face. He’s the head of security my team and my second in command. Although we might not have known each other for as long as the other men in the Brotherhood, he knows how to do his job. So, he’ll be as wary as me about this woman in my home.
We don’t know yet if she’s a threat.
Since I haven’t come across anyone who knew Robert that hasn’t been a threat to eliminate, it’s hard to think she could be anything other than that.
My orders from Aiden Romanov, our Pakhan, and my soon-to-be brother-in-law were to get Summer Reeves and keep her at my apartment until further instruction. That came after he told me she knows Robert. I was sent an address and a picture of her with further orders not to interrogate her. Or kill her.
Aiden has a lead he’s looking into with Dominic D’Agostino and Alejandro Ramírez, head of the Ramírez Cartel in Brazil. Now that I’m back, I’m waiting and wishing like fuck I could be part of whatever it is they’re investigating.
“Thank you. I’ll go see her. Stand by and wait for my orders,” I reply.
He dips his head and leaves.
I have both him and Oleg here in my apartment and the other eight members of my team outside on watch in case trouble comes.
This woman is the most recent lead we’ve managed to secure, so there’s no telling what shit I’ve stirred in taking her and who I’ll smoke out. As long as I pull Robert out of whatever hell hole he crawled into, I don’t care who comes. I want revenge, and I won’t rest until I get my pound of flesh—literally. So, taking Summer Reeves could bring forth Armageddon for all I care, as long as the end result is Robert’s death by my hand.
I make my way up to the guest room I’m keeping her in. I’m not surprised she’s awake. She slept the whole journey here, which was just over an hour. I could have done with her being asleep until I heard from Aiden because I’m dying to interrogate her, but this is fine.
I’ve been back in the world of the living for exactly one year and three days, and I have spent every one of those days looking for Robert.
I’ve changed, and my life has changed in more significant ways too, but my mission to find him and end hasn’t faltered.
I’m the owner and C.E.O. of Markov Tech, but now I’m also a Vor. I’m the Obshchak in the Voirik Brotherhood. That’s something I know my grandfather and father never wanted me to be. I’m sure, though, they would have watched from their graves and seen what happened to me and the near destruction of our family.
It was by nothing short of a miracle I was rescued from Brazil.
My only hope of escape from the hell Robert put me in came in the form of Olivia, my little sister, who had to leave my wheelchair-bound mother behind to search for me. That was how she met Aiden.
She discovered I never died in that crash when she overheard a phone call she shouldn’t have heard between Jude Kuzmin and Igor Evanovich, the bastard who gave all the players in the game of my destruction their powers.
From what I found out so far, I’m not sure who enticed Robert more. Jude with his offer of a million dollars to lure me into a trap, or Igor with his promise to hook Robert up with the connections to make unimaginable wealth. Either way, he took the bait, and he got both.
Olivia realized that the fake as fuck story of my death Jude concocted was an elaborate scheme to get our family’s legacy.
However, no one knew about my grandfather’s designs for the weapon until after they found me in Brazil.
Two months ago, when I realized I’d hit a stumbling block, I went to Aiden for help.
When a man like me who can find all sorts of shit on people gets stumped, it fucking means there are bigger things at work. The trail in my search went cold, and the last record I have of the fucker was from two years ago when he did business with a prick just like him called Luke Thornton.
I can only hope this lead we’ve found with this girl garners better success than my previous searches. All I’ve managed to find so far is nothing.
When I get up the stairs, I hear Summer knocking hard on the locked door and calling out for help. I don’t know her story yet, but I’m not sure who she thinks will help her while she is being held captive here.
Her pleas are silenced and the knocking stops when I turn the key in the lock.
She backs away bewildered, when the door swings open, and I walk in.
She’s fucking terrified of me.