Where the Sun Hides (Seasons of Betrayal #1)(32)

The day had come and gone, filled with long hours of business with the men that answered to him, and some that didn’t. Now that he was finally home, he was ready to call it a night. Try and get some sleep before he needed to be back up and doing that shit all over again.

He had just ground out the cigarette in the ashtray on his bedside table when his phone’s vibrations cut through the silence. He contemplated ignoring the call for only a handful of seconds before he saw who was calling.

Ruslan.

The party had gone well a few days ago. Vasily had left him be, though he hadn’t spoken to him once. Even the monthly meeting had been easy enough. And while they didn’t talk every day, Kaz and his siblings, when they did call, he never ignored their calls.

“Rus, what’s up?”

“We’ve got a problem.”

Kaz sat straight up, already on his feet before Ruslan could get out another word. It was his tone, the hardness that was twined around his words, that made Kaz move without question. His brother was fully capable of handling himself, had been for far longer than Kaz was alive, so if Ruslan was calling him, it was serious.

“Talk to me.” Kaz grabbed a shirt from the closet, not bothering to pull it on as he snatched his keys from the counter and practically ran out of his apartment. “Are you at the club?”

“Yeah. I got a call from one of my guys, said they saw an Escalade driving around. I didn’t think much of it until he called again and said he saw it again circling the club. Once is a coincidence, and twice …”

He didn’t have to finish that statement for Kaz to know what he meant. Twice meant somebody was trolling.

But who the f*ck was stupid enough to be so obvious about it?

“I’m on my way.” Climbing in his car, Kaz started it up and sped out of the parking lot, ignoring the speed limit as he gunned through traffic. “You armed?”

“I’m not a f*cking idiot, Kaz,” Ruslan returned, sounding as though he was walking. “I got this.”

“I’m ten minutes out, brat.”

“Probably somebody trying to flex their shit,” Ruslan returned. “By the time you get here, I’ll be out back to check the perimeter. It’s probably not—who the f*ck are you?”

Kaz knew the question wasn’t aimed at him as Ruslan’s tone had changed from annoyance to outright anger. There were only certain people that inspired that kind of reaction in him. His father and Italians.

“You f*cked up, Russian,” someone said, their voice carrying over the line loud and clear.

“What the f*ck are you talking about?” Ruslan asked, his voice softer, as though he’d taken the phone away from his ear.

Whatever response that might have been said was lost as a grunt sounded, then the phone dropping. Kaz heard all of this, and knew with absolute certainty that it was Ruslan’s grunt that he’d heard.

Fuck.

Pressing down on the gas pedal a little further, Kaz’s back hit the seat as he did ninety the rest of the way.

His tires screeched as Kaz came to a stop in front of the club, barely putting the car in park as he jumped out, grabbing his M9 from the middle console as he went. Abandoning his car—even with the keys inside—Kaz ran, throwing caution to the wind.

At this hour, there was only a few drunk stragglers left, but they seemed oblivious to anything and anyone around them, including the fact that Kaz was carrying a gun for anyone to see.

Kaz was just rounding the corner, spotting the giant lump on the ground that he immediately could see was Ruslan, his face bloody and nearly unrecognizable.

It felt like a punch to his chest, the rage that filled him, and though his first instinct was to go to his brother and make sure he was breathing, the sound of peeling tires and the smell of burning rubber made his head jerk up. He just caught sight of the Escalade driving out of the lot, and when he did, his gun was up and aimed without a thought, bullets splitting the air as he fired.

He ran, even as he pulled the trigger, shattering the back windshield with a bullet, embedding another in the trunk, and a final one in a tail light before the truck disappeared out of view.

“Rus!”

Kaz jogged back to his brother, two fingers already going to his pulse as he carefully rolled him over, scanning him for any bullet wounds, but it seemed the blood coating his shirt was mostly from his face. Feeling the firm, but slow heartbeat beneath his hand, Kaz sagged in relief, using his free one to tug the phone out from his back pocket.

“You’re going to be all right, Rus,” Kaz said, dialing the number for the man they kept on their payroll for this kind of thing. Ruslan hated hospitals and avoided them as much as he could.

“What the f*ck happened?”

Kaz let go of Ruslan only to pick up his gun and point it back at Nathaniel as he appeared at the back entrance, holding the door open. At least until he saw Ruslan on the ground, then a rage the likes of which Kaz had never seen fell like a mask over his face as he ran over.

“What—”

Before he could repeat the question, Kaz asked one of his own. “Where the f*ck were you?”

Nathaniel blinked, then blinked again as he seemed to become aware of the gun that Kaz had trained on him. He was no stranger to Kaz’s surly nature, but never had Kaz blatantly held a gun to the man’s head.

“I was doing inventory in the freezer,” Nathaniel explained, sounding far too calm in the face of Kaz’s anger. “I didn’t hear shit—not until the shots.”