Wicked Mafia Prince (A Dangerous Royals Romance, #2)(11)

On some things they agree. Like shutting down Valhalla. They are powerful allies who make each other better, I think.

Tito thinks it, too. Tito is Aleksio’s right-hand man. He has short hair that he dyes wild and bright. Americans love their hair.

Tito and Aleksio are like two hoodlums, and Yuri and I are like two military men. Our hair is short. Dark. Severe. We have dressed in cargo pants and camouflage jackets.

“We could have him with us in one hour. Riding between us,” Aleksio says. “Assuming he’ll even tolerate a car.”

“Right.”

A man we met with told us that when Kiro came out of the forest, he was wild and uncivilized. Like a savage, he said.

I look forward to meeting this brother of ours very much.

It is difficult not to check Tanechka’s feed on my phone, difficult to disconnect from her, like disconnecting from my own heart. But Aleksio needs to see that I can be focused on this trip. It is not easy, knowing the live feed of Tanechka goes on, knowing she could turn her face. I long to see her face so very much.

But I show Aleksio the reasonable brother he needs to see. We talk about the imposter professor, this Harrison Pinder. We talk about what we will do to him if he’s hurt our bratik.

The cornfields flow by. American corn, much of it harvested. It is autumn. Stalks dry in the field. This we see in Russia, but everything else is so different—the buildings, the feeling of the people.

I miss it.

Up front, Yuri is arguing with Tito over nothing. Like stags, playing at locking horns.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” I say to Aleksio. About Tanechka. He knows what I mean.

Aleksio is hurt; I see it in his face. “Why didn’t you?”

I look at my hands. “I didn’t want you to stop me from…” I wave a hand.

“It’s okay,” he says.

“It’s not,” I say.

He regards me with concern. Love, even.

I squeeze my eyes shut, so ashamed. “I would give my own life to take back what I did to her. I didn’t have faith in her. I didn’t have faith in us.”

Aleksio grips my shoulder. My brother—with me, no matter what. “Your gang had evidence that she was keeping secrets from you, that she was working for a rival gang. You saw her kiss your worst enemy. It’s a lot to take. She lied to you.”

“I know why she did it.”

“Still, she lied to you. She made it look like she betrayed you and your gang, and when you found out, she let you think it.”

As it turned out, Tanechka was playing an elaborate con to save her mother. Pretending to betray us when she wasn’t. “I should have believed in her.” I force myself to feel the daggers of what I did.

“You’re no psychic, Viktor.”

I stare ahead grimly. “My faith in her should have been strong enough to withstand anything.”

“Your gang, the only family you ever knew, made you kill her.”

“I should have believed.”

Aleksio squeezes my shoulder again as if to say, I am here no matter what. He is a good, strong brother.



Cellphone service is shit out on the iron range of northern Minnesota, but Aleksio and his guys have satellite phones. Planes, equipment, hired muscle—we have so much now, thanks to the money our father hid for us. As if he knew what would happen. That we would return to avenge his death.

We leave our SUVs at the edge of Pinder’s property, then trudge through the heavily wooded area.

The trees blaze yellow and red; the sky is a vibrant blue. Tanechka loves nature, loves being outside. She always noticed the sky. Look at the clouds, she’d say. Always telling me to look at the clouds or the sun or stars or something. Always looking up.

She can’t see the sky where she is now.

“We could find him today,” Aleksio says. “Today!”

I grunt. I do not have such high expectations.

It makes me angry that they took him to a mental hospital for being wild. A boy who grew up wild is not crazy. There were some children like this in Siberia.

Our brother would be twenty now.

Distant gunshots. It’s hunting season, which is convenient, considering we are a group of men wandering the woods with guns, except our guns are not quite the same as other guns. And we do not wear blaze orange. We ignore the “No Trespassing” signs and head in.

I would not want to be the one who tries to stop us.

The cabin we located via satellite is many miles in. We hike until we reach a ridge that’s near enough for a visual.

I look through the field glasses, and my heart sinks.

You can see from the foliage alone that the place is abandoned. Roof collapsed. Tall weeds in front of the door. I hand the glasses to Aleksio without a word. He looks. Says nothing. Simply gets back on the satphone to Carlo’s party on the west side of the area. “We’ll go first, move in carefully,” he says. “You watch, ready for anything.”

“I don’t think people are there.”

“Could be arranged to look abandoned,” he says.

I nod. Aleksio is a smart, careful leader. I do not think this is mere appearance, though.

We cast around for traps as we move through the trees and thick underbrush. Finding none, we approach the cabin itself and push open the door with a long branch. It gives.