Though he might have only been twenty-one-years old, Mishca Volkov had seen many things in his short life, more than he should have really. Though it could be said, a few of those awful things had been committed by his own hand.

Since he was a boy, he had learned what it meant to lose someone you loved, learned that while his life may have been one of luxury and comfort for a spell, there was a price to pay for all of those things. He knew his family was different from others, not because of their financials, but because of the men that frequented the manor that had been his childhood home.

For as long as he could remember, there had always been men wearing suits and carrying guns coming to meet with his father in the dead of night, all of them treating Mishca with the same respect his father received.

He might not have known why this was at the time, but he had learned to accept it as his due.

By the time he was sixteen, Mishca had learned the true nature of his father’s business and the role that he would one day play. That wasn’t to say it would be handed to him freely.

It didn’t matter that his father was the Pakhan—the Boss—of the Volkov Bratva, an extension of the Vory v Zakone, or Russian Mafia. To earn his title as Captain, he had to work for it, and work in their world involved fear and bloodshed. He had quickly begun making a name for himself, though it was still closely tied to his father’s, but the day he turned eighteen, he was given a job that awarded him the stars on his chest and a second pair on his knees.

When he had entered that smoky basement, ready to accept the marks of the Bratva, he was not as eager as some would have been in his position. After all, these stars were like a birthright to him. No, by this point, especially with what he had needed to do to earn them, he had begun to resent the life he had been given, even if it had found a way to dig itself under his skin.

Since that night, he had acquired a small fortune and actually begun to manage his own crew of sorts, even at his young age. Some thought he would not be a good leader. He didn’t have their level of experience—namely the number of anonymous bodies left in morgues without fingers or toes or teeth—but they couldn’t help but respect him.

If there was nothing else he required of them, it was their respect.

In his lower Manhattan apartment, Mishca lay on his back in the king-sized bed, completely naked, a woman with shoulder-length blonde hair on her knees at the foot of the bed, expertly taking his cock into her mouth. His scarred fingers were entangled in her hair, helping her along, though with her talents she didn’t need it. Perhaps it was because he’d been drinking a bottle of Vodka over the last hour that this was doing nothing for him.

Naomi knew this, but she often liked to use sex to bend him to her will. He could admit that after their first encounter in the Manhattan Public Library, back when he was still in school, her charms had worked on him and he had soon found himself under her spell, but Mishca hadn’t been raised a fool. Soon he realized just what she was trying to get from him. He knew at some point he would have to be rid of her, but until that day came, he would enjoy her.

His Blackberry chimed incessantly where it lay on the nightstand. Though Naomi made to protest, pouting up at him, he ignored the look and grabbed his phone, answering as it was starting on its third ring.

“Yeah?” He spoke in Russian, never wanting to talk business when Naomi was in the room.

“We need a meeting…now. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

Without saying anything more, Mishca’s driver and bodyguard, Vlad, hung up. For as long as Mishca could remember, Vlad had been in his life, acting not just as an employee, but as a confidante as well. And more recently, his second-hand. If he was calling a meeting, it had to be important.

Pushing Naomi off him, he headed into the closet, only stumbling once, dressing as quickly as he could. After punching in the combination to the safe, pulling out his gun, and locking it back up, he reentered his bedroom.

Watching him from her new position on the bed, eyes glittering with awareness, Naomi was quickly over her sulking. Sometimes Mishca forgot she got off on that shit.

“I’ll call you after.”

That was all she ever got nowadays. The ‘I love yous’ had stopped a long time ago.

He took the elevator down to the lobby, not surprised to see Vlad already waiting for him next to Mishca’s pride and joy, a black S-class Mercedes. The man was nearly as tall as Mishca, but with broader shoulders and graying hair. Vlad was at least two decades his senior, and yet, he still hadn’t made it any higher in the organization.

In this, Mishca understood his privilege.

“What’s the problem?” Mishca asked as he slipped into the backseat, Vlad entering the front.

“I got a call—not sure from who. He only said to tell my boss, ‘his brother is dead,’ then gave me an address—hung up after. But when I had someone trace it, it had come from a payphone, so not a lot of luck there.”

“What the fuck?” That hadn’t been what Mishca was expecting at all. “Have you called Mikhail?”

Vlad’s eyes cut to his in the rearview mirror. “Came to you first.”

While he might have been recruited by Mikhail, Mishca’s father and the Pakhan, he was loyal to Mishca alone.

“Let’s take a look, and then we can decide what to do from there.”

As they pulled off, Mishca contemplated the mysterious phone call, trying to figure out what the hell the person meant. By ‘boss’, the call could have meant either Mikhail or Mishca, but considering he hadn’t received a phone call himself, he doubted that Mikhail’s brother, Viktor, was who the caller meant.

But…who else was there?

Mishca didn’t have a brother, only a sister.

The ride to the place they sought took longer than Mishca would have liked, but the alcohol swimming in his veins was making him antsy. He wasn’t drunk, he rarely drank enough for that, but there was enough that he was feeling the effects.

There were two cars outside the building when they arrived. And if Mishca’s eyes didn’t deceive him, there was also a dead body with a pool of blood around it as well.

“The others should be arriving soon,” Vlad said as he killed the engine and they both climbed out of the car.

Mishca had yet to learn the art of patience, and instead of waiting for their backup, he boldly went inside, gun in hand. Angry voices carried from the upper level of the building, and while he wanted to focus only on them, the crumpled bodies on the floor didn’t go unnoticed.

Mishca wasn’t sure what he had walked into, but he intended to find out.

Vlad headed up the flight of stairs first, his gun aimed out in front of him, ready to shoot anyone that stood in their way. He paused at the top, waiting until Mishca cleared the stairs as well before they rounded the corner. Mishca made the mistake of stepping on a loose floorboard, the wood creaking beneath his shoe, causing the voices to silence. When he heard the unmistakable sound of guns being drawn, he didn’t think.

Taking a breath as he turned, he fired off shots that hit two in the chest, sending another fleeing in the opposite direction. The two he had hit had managed to fire off a few rounds, but their aim was off. The sound of tires squealing calmed Mishca because he knew that the one that had escaped out a back entrance was being dealt with.

As he cleared the entryway, Mishca raised his gun once more, killing one of the two that was still moaning on the ground. The other raised his hands, like the action could ward off a bullet, but instead of killing him right away, Mishca turned to the man tied to the chair. This had to be the one the caller was referring to because the burned body across from him—a sight that even had Mishca turning away in disgust—was too small to be that of a man’s.

But his confusion grew as he stepped closer and saw the boy’s naked skin. Not a single tattoo adorned his skin. Whether it was professionally done or some scratcher work done in the basement of a house, every single man that worked under Mishca had a tattoo.

Reaching for the bag that covered the man’s head, he didn’t know what to expect when he pulled it free, maybe some idiot that had been stupid enough to get caught by their enemies and chose to align himself to Mishca on the chance that it would get him free.

Except, once he pulled that hood free, the fabric still clutched in his hand, he didn’t expect to be staring at himself.

A thousand thoughts ran through his head at that moment, but none of them were able to provide an answer to what he was seeing.

It took a heartbeat, but the boy—he was more boy than man it seemed—forced his head up, his eyes locking on Mishca, and the moment they did, a variety of emotions lit up his face, from shock to confusion, and finally rage.

“You!”

This boy couldn’t have known who he was before this moment. Mishca had thought he’d known everything there was to know about his mother. She rarely, if ever, kept secrets from him…obviously except this one.

A twin?

How could she have possibly hidden this from Mikhail? And more importantly, why hadn’t she told Mishca? He’d kept her confidence, even as a child, why hadn’t she told him?

“It was you they wanted! Who the fuck are you? Huh! What the fuck did you take from them?”

He was irate, jerking in the chair, his arms bloody from his struggles. Just seeing his face, Mishca was afraid to know what they had done to the rest of him.

God, what all had they done to him?

While he didn’t know what the boy—his brother?—was screaming about, he didn’t have time for hysterics. With the amount of bodies in this place, not to mention that someone had probably called Mikhail at this point, they needed to get out of there.

But, he didn’t want anyone to see the boy, for reasons he wasn’t ready to contemplate. He shoved the bag back over his head, but that did nothing to silence his cries, cries that had turned from anger to sobs.

Cursing beneath his breath, Mishca circled him and wrapped an arm around the boy’s—and that was how he seemed to Mishca though they were the same age—throat, applying pressure, hardening himself against the sounds of him gasping for breath. When he finally went limp, Mishca released his hold.

Shoving a hand through his hair, a habit he had grown accustomed to when he was stressed, he gestured to the boy and said, “Get him out of here, and make sure no one sees his face. Tell no one of him.”

Vlad studied him a moment before nodding, never one to question an order.

Mishca had grown used to the careful life he lived, one where surprises were foreign, but as his phone chimed once again, his father’s name flashing across the screen, he knew that there would be far more surprises uncovered in the upcoming days.