The Final Hour (Volkov Bratva #3)(45)

“It is of none of your concern,” Mishca said, too angry to discuss it any further.

“But they tortured me, and Sarah.”

Tears were welling in his eyes, the sight of them making Mishca frown. It was too much like seeing himself cry, and that was something he never did, not since his mother died.

“Yes, she’s dead. You should move on from it, learn from it. There’s nothing that can be done about it now.”

He looked like Mishca had struck him, and seeing him so weak made him irrationally angry.

“Why did you come here? What was your purpose?” He was taken aback by Mishca’s rage, trying to mumble out an answer, but it only infuriated him more. “Never mind. Go back to your room. There’s nothing more for us to discuss.”

“What if he killed someone you loved?” He went on desperately. “Would you just let him get away with it? I—”

He wouldn’t feel guilty. “I wouldn’t have let her die. Don’t blame your weakness on me.”

Looking even more broken than before, he retreated back to that room, slamming the door shut with a resounding click.





At that time, Mishca hadn’t been who he was today. His hatred was like a festering wound, and he unintentionally took it out on Klaus when he had needed him most. By the time the maid had come to him to say Klaus had escaped from the room the next morning, it was too late. He had already become a ghost. Since no one knew about Klaus’ existence—a stipulation that Jetmir had surprisingly followed—it made tracking him down even harder, but eventually, Mishca had found him. And he couldn’t say he liked the results of it.

Mishca had regretted that day for years. In part, he was the reason Klaus had turned into a mercenary.

“What are you doing here if not to kill me?” Mishca asked as he focused back on the present.

“The missus has offered me payment to track down whoever put you here. Tell me, does she really know the baggage you come with? She seems terribly f*cking na?ve.”

Mishca stared at him, baffled by his statement. “What are you talking about?”

Klaus tossed the magazine he’d been holding onto the floor, jumping to his feet, stretching his arms above his head. The bottom of his shirt rose up, showing jagged scar tissue across his abdomen. He came around Mishca’s bedside, reading the label on one of the bags that was connected to an IV in Mishca’s arm.

“Morphine. No wonder you’re asking dumb ass questions. Lauren, the girl that was stupid enough to marry you, hired me to do a job. Keep up, Russian.”

Sometimes his guilt made him forget how much Klaus annoyed him. “How did she find you?”

“Sent your pet dog on a hunt. A friend of a friend of an enemy got in touch.”

Mishca shook his head. “Deny the assignment.”

“No can do. Already took payment.”

Meaning he had to go through with whatever she asked of him. It was the way they worked, the code he lived by.

“She doesn’t understand what she’s asking you to do. I can’t—”

“Oh, I think she does. Don’t forget, she came to me. How long did it take before she was climbing back in your bed after she found out about her father? A week? Two?”

Mishca made a move to grab him, hissing in pain when the needle in the back of his hand pulled. Klaus just laughed, the infuriating bastard.

“Whatever your issue with me, leave her out of it.”

“And deny myself this entertainment? Doesn’t matter, until I find our sniper, she and I are going to get close. I mean, I could f*ck her if I wanted, she wouldn’t know the difference.”

This time, Mishca didn’t give a damn about the IV. He ripped it free himself. The machine monitoring his heart rate beeped frantically, the nurses probably on their way.

Klaus held his hands up, still laughing though that humor didn’t reach his eyes. “See you soon, Russian.”

He was out the door moments before two nurses came racing in, urging Mishca back in the bed. It took a bit of convincing, but they finally left him after reattaching his IV and telling him the doctor would be in shortly.

Already, everything had gone to shit.



“What was it like?” Luka asked.

If it were anyone else, Mishca might’ve thought they genuinely wanted to know, but Luka…no, he would want to get shot just so he could experience the pain.

“Do you need to see someone?” Mishca asked catching the shirt Luka tossed at him. “There are a few shrinks that I have on call.”

“I had one, but apparently I was a ‘conflict of interest,’” he said the last part in an unusually high voice. “It wasn’t like I forced her to suck my dick. She volunteered.”

Shaking his head, Mishca didn’t know why he even bothered. “Did you do what I asked?”

“Boss-Boss is handling business across town, Vlad is chilling in the car, Alex is at school or wherever the f*ck, and Lauren should be on her way up since I called her ten minutes ago.”

Mishca spun around. “I specifically told you not to.”

“She watched you die,” he said, oddly serious, “there was nothing I could have said that would have kept her from this room.”

Lauren was adamant that way.

It wasn’t that Mishca didn’t want to see her, he just didn’t want her to see him like this. All of his promises about keeping her safe, and on the one day she trusted him the most, he had failed her. A part of him was afraid that when she came, before he’d gotten a chance to figure out what to say to her, she would run from him again.