Where the Snow Falls (Seasons of Betrayal #2)(3)

Vera looked at him then, really looked at him, as though she would find an answer to her question in his expression. After a moment, she nodded and looked away.

“You know how to reach me if you need to,” she said softly.

Kaz leaned over to press a quick kiss to her cheek before he climbed out of the car and strolled to where Ruslan’s car was idling. His brother was still inside, his shadowy form just visible through the tinted windows, but as Kaz drew closer, the door swung open.

“Alive and in one piece … With as much noise as you’ve been making these last few weeks, I’m surprised you’re still walking around unscathed.”

“Not completely.”

Kaz didn’t bother showing him the new scar on his side because, by now, his brother should have heard about the incident.

“You know, there are easier ways to go out,” he said once he was standing at Kaz’s side, a thick manila envelope in hand. “If you want, I can shoot you now. Right between the eyes and it’ll be over in a second.”

“Rus—”

“Because when Vasily finds out what you’re doing—and that f*cking bastard always finds out—nobody will be able to save you from him.”

Kaz shook his head. “He won’t come where I’m going.”

“No? But what about when you come back? You won’t be able to hide there forever.”

“Who said anything about hiding?” Kaz asked. “When Vasily comes to you, I want you to tell him exactly where I went. I want him to know.”

Ruslan looked at Kaz like he’d lost his mind. “You want him to know what?”

“That he started a war, and I plan to finish it.”





“Violet.”

“Daddy.”

Violet Gallucci smiled falsely right along with the greeting she offered her father. She much preferred to address him by his given name—Alberto—now, but that wasn’t what would make him happy. More than anything, she had to keep Alberto Gallucci happy.

At least for a little while longer …

Alberto stood, pulling out the chair adjacent to his at the restaurant table for his daughter to sit in. Violet took the seat and pulled it up to the table as a server came with plates of stuffed chicken and pesto in hand, already sliding one in front of her before Alberto had even sat back down.

She wasn’t sure which annoyed her more.

That her father had called her to the restaurant to eat knowing she preferred to keep a distance from him lately, or that he hadn’t even allowed her to choose her own meal for the dinner.

Both were annoying, to be sure, and they each held a certain air of manipulation. One controlled her time and with whom she spent it, and the other decided what she could and could not partake in, even if it was just … food.

It was never just food with her father.

Not now.

A certain Russian had yanked off Violet’s rose-tinted glasses, and she just couldn't let herself forget, no matter how much her father demanded she do so.

Kaz.

She no longer saw her father the same way she did as a child. Back then, Alberto had been almost a god of sorts to a younger her; she thought him invincible when he was put up against the world.

But the truth was a great deal dirtier than she had wanted to admit.

Her father wasn’t the hero she’d always made him out to be—he was just as much the bad guy as anyone else.

Violet had simply come to a point where she decided Alberto Gallucci wasn’t going to choose which bad man she would hand over her loyalty and love to in her life.

And it wasn't as if she had gone into this blind, after all.

Not where Kazimir Markovic was concerned.

“You could smile a little more, dolcezza,” Alberto said, flipping out a napkin to cover his lap.

“Could I?”

Alberto lifted his gaze, his head tipping to the side slightly as he watched her. Months earlier, years ago even, Violet might have shrunk under that gaze, terrified of disappointing the man who proclaimed to love her entirely just because she was a piece of him and nothing more. She would have been heartbroken to see his anger directed at her—as he assured he loved her unconditionally.

But his love did come with conditions.

Her behavior.

Her appearance.

Her image.

His legacy.

That was all it ever was, but he had always made sure to wrap it in such pretty paper that she never looked far enough beyond the surface to see what really lay beneath it all.

Violet learned that far too late.

Unfortunately for her father, Alberto forgot that Violet was cut from the same cloth. She came from him, after all. She was his daughter.

So maybe, he should have seen her pleasantries and fake smiles for what they really were—her own brand of manipulation.

A good child—his child—lived to please him, and nothing more. It was something he wanted so badly that he was willing to overlook the blank stares and dull answers only because he still wanted to see and hear it, if not a little lackluster in delivery.

Violet wasn’t living for her father now.

She was just waiting on somebody else.

At that thought, she passed a look toward the large, decorative brass clock that dominated an entire far wall of the restaurant. Plated on glass, it showcased the time. She did the math in her head, having already tallied the time it would take for Kaz to drive from his destination to his next stop.