Page 85 of Violent Pawn

His office is at the end of the hallway. There’s shelving along one wall and a glass desk in the centre, a computer that Lev awakens with a tap to the space bar. It unlocks, password free. After only a few clicks, he locates the camera software, and somehow knows how it all works as he starts scrolling through historical footage. I watch my brother doing his nerdy shit, appreciating his skills when he finds the correct feed.

At 5:47 this morning, a person appeared, a hood pulled up over their head. No mask and his head was angled down, as if aware there’s a camera. He disappears inside the house, and Lev speeds the recording up until the same person exits less than a half hour later. He shuts the door and starts down the path, but at the last second, right at the edge of the camera’s view, stops and faces the house.

He makes the sign of the cross before ducking out of sight.

There was something eerily familiar about⁠—

“Wait.” A hand to the desk, I lean closer to the monitor. “Go back to when he turned around and zoom in as much as possible.”

Lev clicks a couple of keys until the image becomes larger. Slightly blurrier too, but it’s enough to make out the face. The eyes that recently studied my body like he was painting artwork. The stubble that burned my thighs.

“Svolotsch’!”

42

NERO

“What the fuck do you mean there’s a shipment of weapons missing? How do you lose two hundred fucking guns?”

The soldier who’s had the unfortunate task of conveying the information to Zeno visibly shakes. He darts a look to where I’m standing off to the side, but there’s no way I’ll be helping. Zeno’s already ripped into me for disappearing for two days, not yet understanding I did it for him.

I’d flown back this morning on a commercial flight, intending to admit everything at long last, only to be met with an onslaught of missed calls and texts. It’s led to a shitty day dealing with everything.

First, it was Gabriella freaking out about something wedding-related that had Elio driving all over the place, much to the annoyance of Zeno, who needed him to start training new recruits, yet found himself stuck between his role and his own wedding. He asked me to take over the training so there’d be no reason to upset his mother.

Then a shipment of weapons that were being delivered to a high-paying customer in Croatia last night mysteriously went missing before the pickup. When soldiers went to drop them off at the border, there was nothing to pick up.

“So you’re telling me someone snuck into the compound, which has twenty-four-hour surveillance on it, stole a motherfucking massive crate of these things, and walked away?”

Gotta hand it to the kid. If Zeno’s padre spoke to me this way, I would have pissed myself.

The soldier bobs his head. “We checked the footage, but it’s been scraped.”

Zeno slams a fist down on his desk. “Of course it was! Find whoever did this. If those weapons are not returned within seventy-two hours, your life is on the line. Go.”

The soldier skitters away, shutting the door as quietly as fear allows him to. Once the steps hammer down the stairs, I turn back to him. “Don’t you think you were too rough? He’s only the messenger.”

Zeno rounds on me, teeth bared. “No, it’s yours because you were supposed to oversee the deal. Where the fuck have you been, Nero? You can’t disappear for two days!”

When I push off the wall, my hands really itch for a drink. One final one to get through this.

Years of guilt are ready to be unleashed because when he inevitably blames me, I’ll explain how wiping out the rest of Ursin’s Elite, the rest who wronged us that day, will make it all better.

Then I’ll be healed.

Anastasia will never know what’s been happening in the background over the past few months. She’ll be with someone who doesn’t make drinking his hobby anymore. I’ll be deserving of her. It’s so simple.

“I did it for you.”

Zeno drops a hip onto his desk, crossing his arms. “Disappearing for days was your way of helping me? Explain.”

This. Is. It.

As soon as my mouth opens, his phone rings. He answers by the second ring, brows raising at whoever’s on the other side, and then he gives the current address of where we are.

“The Bratva jet touched down a few minutes ago,” he explains after tossing his phone back to his desk. “Didn’t think she’d be returning so soon. She must be eager. They said she sped right off.”

Fuck, fuck, fuck. Our private airfield is only ten minutes away, being this club is on the farthest end of the city.