“And how did you plan to do that? Unless…you planned a coup?”
He nods. “We needed outside help for that. We had weapons and moles in higher positions, but not enough manpower to flip the Kremlin upside down.”
“Let me guess, Roman was one of the outsiders?”
“Unfortunately, yes. He was acquainted with your uncle Anatoly, and he offered his mercenaries and logistic support. Until he stabbed us in the back. The government only needed to issue the order to the general, Abram Kuzmin. Slap ‘elimination of a possible terrorist group’ on the operation and come after us.”
“So once Anton recovered, he decided to take things into his own hands?”
“Yes. However, like you, he believed Kirill had nothing to do with it until very recently.”
“What…changed his mind?”
“The attack on us and you a month ago, maybe?”
I clear my throat. “Right.”
“Just recuperate for now. There’ll be a chance for us to finally get Kirill.”
My heart aches, but I nod. Why the hell did I have to give my heart to the man who destroyed me? Not once, but twice.
I cram the toast in my mouth, then stand up and put on my coat. “I’m going to buy a few things.”
“Like what?” Uncle asks. “We have everything.”
“Woman…things,” I lie through my teeth. “I’ll be back soon.”
Mike bounds into the kitchen, his arms open wide. “I wanna go!”
“Maybe next time, Mishka. I will bring you candy instead?”
“Okay!” He jumps up with excitement although he had Anton promise him the same.
I kiss his cheek and jog out the front door, then head to the garage, where we keep three snowmobiles. I check my watch and smile when a dot appears on the screen.
So Anton is up to something.
I know, because he tends to disappear for hours and doesn’t tell me what he’s doing.
I’m done being kept in the dark, so I planted one of the trackers Uncle keeps in the engine of every snowmobile. I grab my own, put on my gloves, and speed across the field.
It takes us one hour to get to the smallest town on a snowmobile, and it seems that’s where Anton is heading.
I start to follow while keeping a safe distance. Before I can reach the town center, he’s on the road again, this time seeming to head out of town and into…nothing. There are no buildings in the field he’s entering. Only a forest.
Weird.
I follow him for another thirty minutes before he comes to a stop. Once I’m two minutes away from the target, I park the snowmobile beneath a low tree, mark the position on my watch, and then go on foot.
My movements are careful and silent, but I don’t even need to put forth an ounce of effort. I’m a sniper, after all. Moving like shadows is what we do best.
Anton’s snowmobile is parked outside a small cottage in the middle of the frozen forest. I hide behind a tree and take a closer look. The windows are busted, some of the wood is splintered, and the gaps are filled with ice.
What is he doing here?
As I get closer, I catch a glimpse of light from a window at ground level.
Of course.
Whatever this place is, it’s located underground.
I lift up my coat’s collar further, run to the entrance, then sneak inside and check my gun, just in case.
Sure enough, the interior of the cottage is shabby and fucking freezing at best. However, there’s an ajar door at the far end. I carefully slip through it and am greeted by dark stairs that are illuminated by a faint orange bulb.
I go down one step at a time. Due to the heat, the feeling slowly returns to my limbs.
Voices reach me from below, and I pause at the bottom of the stairs before I peek from behind the wall. The basement is more secured than the room upstairs, but it’s still shabby. The walls are made of concrete, but it has the same eyesore orange lighting as the stairway.
However, the basement isn’t what makes me gulp.
It’s my brother standing in front of a man hanging from the ceiling by his cuffed arms. I can only see Anton’s tense back through the shirt he was wearing this morning as he shoves a container of food in his prisoner’s face. “If you want to starve again, I can make that happen.”
My spine jerks at his dark tone. This is a part of Anton that I never wished to see. In a way, it’s similar to the version of Papa I was shielded from.
“Fuck you,” the man whispers in barely audible Russian.
My heart lurches in my chest as Anton drives his fist into the man’s face. “Try again and stop pissing me off.”
I lean my head sideways and see that, sure enough, it’s Maksim.
He’s hanging half naked, his chest full of lacerations and dry blood, his face bruised, and his lips bleeding from Anton’s punch.
“What did Kirill send you to do here?”
“Maybe it’s to see your true fucking face, asshole,” Maksim mocks and then coughs, choking on his own blood.
Anton punches him again, causing the chains to rattle. “I told you not to piss me off.”
My brother lifts his fist again, but I jump out of my hiding place. “Stop!”
6
SASHA
My legs shake as I stare at the gruesome scene in front of me.
I never expected there would be a day when Yuri—no, Anton—would be torturing Maksim.
He’s his best friend.
Or, more accurately, was his best friend.
If I’m piecing things together correctly, then maybe everything with his friendship with Maksim was also a fa?ade.
Like the whole Yuri persona Anton was immersed in for years.
My brother spins around, his muscles tensing beneath his shirt. A harsh look turns his eyes to a green that resembles a haunted mountain. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
“I should be the one to ask you that.” I storm toward them, hiding my gun in the process.
Maksim’s good eye widens as I approach them, even as he struggles to hold his body up by grabbing the chains. “Sasha…？”
His murmured question stabs me in the chest. I expected him to be shocked at my gender switch, especially since he was against my leaving the Morozov family. However, I didn’t think it’d hit him to this extent.
He looks so betrayed, so…distraught.
Anton slides his attention between him and me before he zeroes in on who could safely be considered his ex-friend. His jaw clenches, and his eyes blaze in a way I haven’t witnessed before.
No.
I actually have, when he inexplicably got angry whenever Maksim was acting familiar with me or others. But those were mere hints of his bottled feelings—this, however, is pure rage.
“You’re a girl?” Maksim asks in a faint, uncharacteristic tone.
He was always the loud, untamed one, but now, he looks like a kicked puppy with wounds all over his body. Literally and figuratively.
“She is.” My brother gets in his face. “She was a woman all along, but you believed she was a man like a fucking fool. Intelligence was never your strongest skill.”
“You shut the fuck up!” Maksim lunges against his bindings. “This is none of your business—”
His words are cut off when Anton backhands him hard and fast. The slap of flesh against flesh echoes in the silent air worse than a whip. It’s not a punch, but it feels so much worse, judging from the way Maksim freezes up.