Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 79781 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 399(@200wpm)___ 319(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79781 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 399(@200wpm)___ 319(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
But he doesn’t look like he’s pleading for mercy.
He looks like he’s trying to make his own fucking rules.
“That is not how this is going to work, Yegor,” I say in a low tone.
I don’t even finish the sentence before I lurch fast, my finger depressing the trigger.
The gunshot pops in the air and Yegor falls to the ground, blood spilling from his knee where I shot him.
“Fuck!” he shouts, clutching at his leg as he collapses.
Blood starts to trickle into the pool, and in this light, it’s like black paint spilling into the water, blooming out into lighter red.
“Are you ready to speak yet?” I ask him, stepping forward fast, this time pointing the gun at his other knee. “Start. Now.”
“Roman, Roman,” he cries, groaning at the pain in his leg. “Fuck, they will have heard that gunshot, you impatient fool. You shouldn’t have done that—”
“I don’t care what they heard. Maks has eyes on them as we speak. Maks, are they moving?”
“They are playing cards and doing coke,” Maks says. “One of them is on his phone, though. Could be bad. I don’t think your friends give a fuck that you were just shot, Yegor.”
“Tell me who they are,” I bark at him.
“You know who they are,” Yegor growls, looking up at me.
“I need to hear you say it. Fucking tell me how you betrayed me. Tell me you’re the next Petrov to turn on us, in a series of betrayals that only gets longer.”
“God damn it,” he says, heaving out the words as he winces at the pain. “I was trying to protect you. I needed one more day. Maybe two. But now you’ve gone and fucked it all up for both of us.”
I frown at him. “Explain. Now.”
“Information is dangerous,” Yegor roars. “You are the one who taught me that. I didn’t want you to know. I couldn’t tell you what I was doing. They are paid off by Maletti scum. Don’t you already know that? I had them in the palm of my hand. I was going to use the Landrey boy as a trap, and we were going to fucking kill all of them, Roman. Don’t you see?”
I clutch the metal of the gun tighter in my hand. “Bait?” I whisper.
“The Malettis would come here. For Tate. But we would never give him over to them. Luring them here, to us, has been my plan the whole time. We were supposed to kill them together.”
A cresting wave of realization hits me like a tidal wave.
“You were using Tate,” I whisper.
“Yes. But I was never going to hurt any of you. I would never.”
“You were using my Tate as fucking bait for a plan you never told me?”
I had noticed that Yegor didn’t shed a tear when I shot his knee.
But they fall from his face now, in long, slow streaks, as he answers my question.
“We already lost your mother, Roman,” he breathes. “I cannot lose you, too. I would not dream of betraying you. I did all of this for you.”
The ground feels like it’s swaying beneath my feet.
I step back, putting a hand to the column behind me, blinking as I stare at Yegor’s blood on the deck.
“How?” I whisper.
“Those fucking monsters inside my living room,” Yegor explains, “they have close friends in the police force in the city. Well, I have a fucking close friend there, too. The moment the incident with the Landrey boy occurred, I heard about it. My contact there is old friends with his brother, Luke. He’s one of the only clean people still left in that entire goddamn department.”
“Holy shit,” Maks murmurs.
“So you did manipulate the situation so that Tate would be sent here? To be under my protection? This… request wasn’t at all his brother’s idea?”
Yegor grimaces as he tries to move his leg. “Our mutual friend made Luke Landrey think it was his own idea. But yes. It was our design.”
“You were doing all of this strategizing and plotting without my knowledge. Under my nose. Under my father’s nose,” I say.
“Yes. I fucking was. Because if you knew of it, you would never have agreed to it. We would never have a chance to end the lives of the people who still have a chokehold on your heart, Roman. I want my cousin back. I want you back. My fucking family, Roman—”
“Our family dissolved when she died,” I utter.
He shakes his head. “No. I loved your mother so much, too. But we are still us. The Petrov name…”
“You,” I tell him, my eyes wide, “are beneath the Petrov name.”
Information is dangerous.
It truly is something I’ve told Yegor a thousand times.
I underestimated him.
Entirely.
He has seemed like a baby to me for so long that I hadn’t noticed that he grew up, right there, beneath my nose, and I never stopped for long enough to see it.