69

Anatoli
I make my way over there. They look at me when I reach the door and I can tell straight away they were deep in conversation about something important.
“Hey, guys.” I keep the annoyance I still feel out of my voice.
“What are you doing back here?” Zakh asks.
“Better to work.”
“Trust me, it’s not,” Malik says.
“What’s happening?”
“The short story is our dealer is dead.” Zakh leans back and steeples his fingers.
I release a heavy sigh. “How?”
“Shot this evening just after I found the intel.”
My brows knit together. “That’s suspicious as fuck.” I walk in and take a seat beside Malik. “Who else knew you got the intel about him?”
“Just me,” Malik replies.
“Then you’re being watched.” That’s the only thing that makes sense.
“That’s exactly what we’re thinking too, so something else is definitely going on. And whoever is watching is tracking us from inside here, and our homes. I’ve been going through my computer looking for spyware, but I can’t find anything.”
I look from Zakh to Malik. They’re worried, which they’re right to be with
everything being so vague. “Did Mikhail go home?”
“Yeah, with his secretary.” Malik smirks. “He’s been with her all day.”
I shake my head with disgust, but that’s an alibi that might excuse him on
some level.
“What are you thinking, Anatoli?” Zakh asks.
“I’m not sure. It looks like someone else is involved.”
“I managed to get a message to Eric Markov.” Erik is the Obshchak in the Voirik Bratva. He was one of the people I went to see when I was in L. A. He creates and supports our antivirus software at his company Markov Tech. “I sent him the IP address I found. It was linked to the undisclosed recipient emails ordering the poison from the dealer. I won’t take the risk and decrypt anything from here. Eric’s looking into it now. We’re just hanging around to see if he finds anything tonight.”
“Good. How did you find the dealer’s details in the first place?”
“That’s my part,” Malik replies. “Some things require street smarts. I looked at the toxicology report Zakh got from the lab and noticed the oleander was blended with a synthetic street drug. That was probably what made our father’s heart condition look so real. I know there are only a few people you can get the drug from. Our guy was the best at what he did and an expert in poisons used by many assassins.”
Zakh bites the inside of his lip. “I’ve asked Leo and Kill to go to the coroner’s office to get more details on the dealer’s time of death and whereabouts before he was shot. I trust them to keep things quiet.”
Leo and Kill are enforcers in our Brotherhood. As Leo is Zakh’s best friend and Lorelai’s older brother, and Kill is their cousin, I respect Zakh’s trust in them.
“So it’s a waiting game now.”
Malik stands and pulls on his jacket. “We might be here for a while. I was about to get some food. Are you going to be here long enough to eat?”
I nod. “I’ll stay. Looks like I’m needed here more.” Home is definitely not where I want to be with shit going on behind my back.
“Alright. I’ll be back in ten minutes. Call me if you hear anything while I’m out.”
He leaves, and I look back at Zakh. He’s so tense the vein on the side of his head is standing to attention. Earlier, he seemed hopeful that he was on track to find something.
Over the time I’ve gotten to know him, the main thing I’ve realized is how close he is to our father. What he wants is revenge.
I know what that feels like. But the same man he wishes to seek vengeance for is the one I would have killed myself.
“Anatoli, this thing might not be Mikhail.” He leans onto the desk with gritted teeth. “Or there are others working with him.”
“We’ll have to wait and see.”
“I’m not known for my patience.”
“Neither am I.”
“Yeah, I figured that out when you decked Mikhail earlier.”
“You know he fucking deserved it, and more.” I make a fist and press my knuckles into the edge of my seat.
“Yes, which begs the question why are you here and not with the wife you looked really taken with?”
I shake my head. “I’m not taken with her.” Instantly, I feel bad for the lie. The deadpan look he gives me tells me he knows it’s a lie, too. “Or rather, I mustn’t be.”
“Why? I’ve never seen Avrora look like that with anyone, and I’ve known her practically her whole life. She looked happy. So did you.”
“I think she’s just grown accustomed to me. That’s all it is.”
“She’s your wife, Anatoli. Look, she was bound to be upset hearing that Mikhail was a damn cheat because she was essentially raised to love him. But I get where you’re coming from, because I would be pissed, too. All I’m saying is, give her the benefit of the doubt.”
I appreciate what he’s saying, but my earlier decision needs to stand.
“I need to cool off, Zakh. That’s the best thing for me now. I need a break to get my head together.”
“And what will your head together look like? The guy you were when you first arrived?”
That gives me pause, but I know the answer. “Yes. That guy was fueled by fire and had his head screwed on.” Each day was taken with precision. Then it changed the moment I tasted her. My own damn punishment backfired on me and led me here.
“You’re a different person now.”
“No. Believe me, I’m the same guy. It’s just that time has passed.”
“But you love her.”
I look at him as if he just hit me with a truck. I’m amazed that a guy who I’ve only known for roughly two months can see through me enough to know that. It’s almost like when Mikhail could tell I was fascinated with Avrora, but this is different.
There is no ill will in Zakh toward me.
“That doesn’t mean anything.”
“In our world it does. In our world, you don’t always get to be with the girl you love. I won’t.”
My interest piques. He’s never been so open with me before.
“Why not?”
“Because she doesn’t belong to me.” Defeat invades his eyes.
“You don’t strike me as a man who would let that stop you.”
“I’m not. But on this occasion, I had to. Sometimes you have to choose your battles wisely.”
I consider his words as I mull over everything that happened tonight, and how it made me feel. I can’t allow anyone to have control over my emotions the way Avrora does. I just can’t. “Maybe that’s what I’m doing.”
“I don’t think you are.”
“Why not?” I’m really interested to hear what he has to say.
“I came across something I thought was odd at first, then I realized it wasn’t.”
“What did you come across, brother?”
“The change of ownership details for Galitze Developments.”
Shit. How the motherfucking hell did he find that? That was hidden pretty much in the same way everything else was hidden and I got Gytha to mask the ownership like Uther did with the oil company. I clench my back teeth and slow my breathing. Finding that means he knows a chunk of my plan he shouldn’t.
“Don’t worry, your secret is safe with me.”
“Is it Zakh?”
“I think you know the answer to that.”
My heart tells me I can trust him but I’m not used to trusting anyone outside my circle.
“Then what about it?”
“It belongs to you. To my knowledge, we were supposed to form a partnership of shares. The whole marriage contract was based on that. Uther was to get shares in Scarfoni Inc. and you’d get some of Galitze Developments’. But all you left the man with is the clothes on his back. You took his daughter so he’d have no way of arranging another marriage, you took his position in the Bratva, and now you own the vineyard/oil field too.” He gives me a pensive stare. “Apart from what you knew about the vineyard, I suspected there was more going on between you and Uther when you demoted him. It didn’t make sense given his years of expertise. But now I know there’s more. You came for vengeance on him too, didn’t you? Not just our father. Am I right?”
I haven’t known Zakh for that long, but from what I know about him, I’ve gathered that he wouldn’t be asking me a question like that if he didn’t already know the answer.
“Yes.”
He looks me over. “Was it Uther who killed your mother?”
“It was.”
“Why haven’t you killed him yet?” He speaks respectfully, as if giving due regard to my mother.
“All in good time. I’m sure you understand death is too easy for some villains.”
“I do. Does Avrora know?”
“No.” I drag in a breath and clench my jaw.
I’ve gone from feeling like I can’t talk about the past with her because Uther is her father, to not wanting to hurt her even more than Uther has. The people she loves lied to her, including Mikhail. She already knows I’m the devil, but maybe I don’t want to be the man to break her heart even more.
“If all of that can happen to you and you can still love her, that has to be worth something.”
He’s right. He’s fucking right. But the issues Avrora and I have are deep-rooted and tangled with the problems I’ve always had with Mikhail, with him being chosen over me. Except this feels like the time that matters most, because it’s happening now. And it’s not something anyone can help me with.
“I guess we’ll have to see.”
Zakh’s phone starts buzzing on the desk and I’m grateful for the diversion.
He answers it and within seconds I know it’s an important call judging by the deep furrow in his brow. It’s probably the call he was waiting on from Eric.
When he hangs up, he slams a fist on his desk. “That was Eric. He says the emails came from Uther’s computer. He ordered the poison. He was trying to kill our father.”