Total pages in book: 82
Estimated words: 79326 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 397(@200wpm)___ 317(@250wpm)___ 264(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79326 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 397(@200wpm)___ 317(@250wpm)___ 264(@300wpm)
I regret the seriousness of his gaze–the way his eyes look far older than his years. The watchful, controlled way he carries himself, ever-vigilant for anything in his world slipping out of his control.
It’s my fault. I tried to keep my family sheltered from the violence of my profession, but it still seeped through. Ben got blood on his hands at a young age under dire circumstances.
In order to control his world and avoid another incident, he became a leader. He learned to always know where people are coming from. To consider all angles to protect those around him.
I shake his hand, then pull him in for a man hug. “Watch out for your sister.” I thump him on the back, but there’s gravity in my voice.
Ben matches my tone. “I will.” His gaze is intense and serious. “I wish she would move in here.”
“I know, but she wants her freedom. I checked her dorm, and the security is tight. She’ll be okay if she stays vigilant.”
“I have her schedule, so I know where she is at all times and where the potential threats might be.” Ben glances at Anders. “I already took care of the one professor on campus known for preying on female students.”
I flick my eyebrows. This is the first I’ve heard of it. I suppress the sense of alarm that I should’ve known what happened and advised him on his course of action. I taught him a lot, but he may not know how to avoid all legal repercussions. Or where to dump a body in Whisper.
But he probably didn’t handle it that way. He can handle business on his own, in his own way. As much as I want to swoop in and help, I have to let him fly.
Still, I can’t help but remind him, “You know if you ever need help with anything at all, I can send someone out here or come myself. All it takes is one call.” I can’t say in front of Lucy what I mean–that I’ll send a fixer. Or an enforcer. A cleaner. Whatever he needs.
“I know.” Ben’s voice carries the authority of a leader. I see the weight of responsibility for his entire crew–everyone who lives in that house with him–and possibly the entire campus resting on his broad shoulders.
I know the event that made him this way. It haunts me as much as it still haunts him.
But he wears the mantle like a king. He has the strength and fortitude to hold up the leaden crown that rests on his head.
The young prince is all grown up.
My phone buzzes with an incoming text, and I glance at the screen. It’s my Moscow Pakhan Adrian Tergenov, with our code for an emergency.
“Excuse me,” I say to Lucy and Ben. “I need to make a call.” I walk through the house and out the French doors to the enormous, landscaped garden the Baranov House uses for its frequent campus parties.
I hit the call button for Adrian.
At one time, he was my best cleaner. Eighteen years ago, I sent him and his wife Kat to Moscow to take over and run our arm of the bratva there.
“What is it?”
“I have a problem. A big problem.” I hear tightly coiled violence in Adrian’s voice that I haven’t heard since the years when he came to me to seek help in finding his sister and the sex traffickers who had kidnapped her.
“Tell me.”
“It’s about Lara.”
I go still. Lara is Adrian and Kat’s only child, who goes to college in Paris.
Business is business, but anything involving our children is a grave matter. We violated bratva code when we took wives and had children. I did it first and allowed the rest of my cell to follow. The reason marriage is outside of the bratva code is because women and children can be used as pawns against us.
That’s why I doubled down on building an empire and gaining influence. Everything I’ve done has been to keep our families protected.
“Anatoli Rostov’s son, Abrasha, is after her. Now he’s calling me, asking for an alliance in marriage.”
Anatoli Rostov is one of the richest and most dangerous members of the Russian oligarchy. He has homes in Turkey, the Arab Emirates, and the French Riviera. He controls much of the political world in Russia. Ben had a run-in with his son the year he went to boarding school in Switzerland.
We’ve had to battle to accumulate enough power to remain separate from Rostov’s dirty dealings. To build our empire without infringing on his. I had to prove we had enough power–both political and guns–that we weren’t worth messing with.
I thought we had managed to surpass them in terms of power held in Russia, but if Rostov is trying to flip Adrian, we have trouble on our hands.
Rostov is known for sadistic torture and gruesome murders. He uses fear to gain power. Ben reported that his son was a full-fledged psychopath.