It wasn’t even ten in the morning, and Kaz was already over the fucking day.
Five minutes into his conversation with Boris, he found that the politics of being the boss would be what he hated most. It wasn’t as simple as going to a warehouse in the middle of the night and breaking their nose to get them to cooperate.
Now he was expected to talk.
Not even a full two months into his position and he was already over it.
Once Violet was out the door, Kaz put the phone on speaker, tossing the device on his desk. Boris was still droning on as Kaz grabbed a pair of jeans and pulled them on. Back in his office, his gaze shot to his phone as another call popped up.
It was a number he didn’t recognize, but nevertheless … “I have another call.” Clicking over before the other man could respond, he answered, “Kaz.”
“I hear congratulations are in order.”
Vasily.
Kaz had given considerable thought to the day he finally crossed paths with his father. The tables had turned, after all, and with the Bratva at his back, he’d been ready for that day to come. After all, Kaz was no longer the one with a target on his back.
It would have been simple.
But as he heard his father’s amused voice over the line, he didn’t feel that sense of calm he thought he would.
His skin was crawling.
“You’re a dead man,” Kaz said even as he walked out of his office, going over to the window to look down at the street.
The car he had ordered to take her to her appointment was still idling at the curb, meaning Violet had yet to make it downstairs, but one glance at his watch told him that she should have already made it downstairs by now.
Wait …
Hadn’t she said something as she was leaving?
“Have I taught you nothing, Kazimir?” Vasily asked, sounding like he was walking, the wind blowing. “You never leave a problem unsolved.”
Going back to his office, he snatched a drawer open in his desk, grabbing the gun he had stashed. Not bothering with a shirt or shoes, he headed out the door.
“Don’t worry,” Kaz said to Vasily as he jerked his head at his man down the hall to get his attention. “You won’t be a problem for long, Vasily.”
Vasily’s laughter echoed even as Kaz pulled the phone away from his ear, staring the other man down. “Where’s Violet?”
Recognizing that something was wrong, the man frowned, looking at the service elevator. “She went down to the garage to grab something from the car before she was coming back in so she could leave, she said.”
Why the fuck—
Even as he brought the phone back to his ear, Kaz remembered then what she had been trying to tell him as she was leaving.
It was with that thought that Kaz knew he fucked up.
Vasily’s voice grabbed his attention again. “I’ve always hated this car of yours. What did you tell me after defying my order not to purchase it, hmm? You would do as you wanted. Perhaps it’s time I teach you a lesson in humility. It’s long overdue.”
With that, Vasily hung up the call.
Taking off for the stairs, Kaz practically flew down them in his haste to get downstairs. Having heard the name he had used, the soldier rushing to catch up was already making a call, sounding an alarm for nearly every Vor in the nearby vicinity.
Blood rushing in his ears …
His heart racing …
Kaz exploded out of the building, his gaze shooting to where he’d parked his car. The door hung open, and the alarm blared so loud it was like fucking nails on a chalkboard.
“Kazimir!”
She never called him that, not even when she was mad. To her, he was always Kaz or whatever pet name she was calling him at the moment.
But the sound of her screaming out his name with raw fear in her voice made his stomach drop to his feet, even as he spun in the direction of her voice.
A man wearing all black, two of them in fact, were wrestling her toward an idling, black van, practically dragging her across the cement, her nails leaving score marks as she fought for purchase. Her eyes were wide and frightened, tears spilling from them, and the sight of it set his blood on fire.
His gun aimed at the man, Kaz fired off shots even as he took off across the parking lot.
Kaz had never felt terror—not that all-consuming emotion that made him feel like he was going to fucking die just from the rapid pace of his heart—but he felt it then.
They were almost to the car …
He had a few dozen feet …
Fuck.
Fuck.
Fuck.
One of the men grunted as a bullet slammed into his chest, sending him back a few steps, but he wasn’t the one Kaz fucking wanted. The other dragging Violet had never loosened his hold or faltered in step as the shots started going off.
And he was now at the van.
“No!”
But it was too late. Violet’s screams echoed around the garage until the panel door slid closed. The sound of tires squealing became impossibly loud.
Kaz was still running, refusing to slow until the van disappeared around the corner. There was no way he could catch them on foot—his fucking car.
Sprinting back, he didn’t remember until he was at his car that Violet had his keys. Her purse was on the ground, its contents scattered everywhere. Dropping down to his knees, he looked everywhere in a desperate attempt to find them, even as he counted the few seconds head start they had on him.
“Boss—”
“Where are my fucking keys? Find my fucking keys!” But when he couldn’t find them fast enough, Kaz was back on his feet, the blood rushing in his ears nearly blocking out everything around him.
That terror fled as rage consumed him. Spinning to grab the soldier at his back by the shirt collar, he jerked him closer. “I don’t care who you have to kill, but I want her back. Tear this fucking city apart.”
Shoving him away, Kaz hadn’t realized they were no longer alone. Rus was there, but even he took a step back in the face of Kaz’s rage. “We’ll get her back.”
“You don’t know that shit,” Kaz fired back. “He would mail her back in fucking pieces if he thought it would break me.”
“He won’t.”
He was about to lose his fucking mind. “What the fu—”
“Zatknis’, Kazimir,” Rus snapped. “If he were going to kill her, he would have done it here—right here where you would have seen it. He took her. At the very least, you have time. If he called you beforehand, he’d call you again just to fuck with you. Now, reel your shit in.”
“Gallucci.”
“What?”
Kaz thought of the man instantly. The two could have easily conspired this whole fucking thing, and that meant Alberto would know where she was.
“Call Alfie,” Kaz commanded after taking a breath, starting back for his apartment, ignoring the sirens he could already hear in the distance.
Rus frowned. “For what purpose?”
Ejecting the clip, Kaz counted the bullets—or bullet, as it were—before sliding it back into place. “It’s time to pick a side.”
Her screams echoed in his ears the most.
That blood-curdling yell that made his skin feel like it was crawling. Even hours later, it still made him anxious to the point he couldn’t sit still.
Vasily had yet to call, nor did he answer the number he had called from before, but that did lead a little more credence to what Rus was trying to tell him. His father knew enough about keeping his hands clean, so if he were really planning to kill her, the phone would be turned off.
But at the moment, Kaz didn’t care for a reason.
He didn’t want there to be ifs and whens, he wanted an answer right fucking then, and if no one spoke quickly enough, he would get the answers himself.
Rus was driving, looking over every so often. Even his lips were moving, probably words of encouragement—or at least ones meant to calm him—but Kaz couldn’t hear anything, even when he looked and could see him speaking.
It was as if everything had gone dark around him.
He had lost his sun.
But he would get her back if it was the last fucking thing he did.
And it was for her that he would level the fucking city, starting with an impromptu meeting with his new father-in-law.
“… and don’t do anything fucking stupid, Kaz,” Rus said, his voice filtering back in as they arrived at a restaurant in a part of the city where money bought silence and most people turned the other eye.
It wasn’t a restaurant he often frequented—mainly because the Albanian syndicate that called this place home made it quite clear they weren’t willing to do business with outsiders. But it was, however, one of Alfie’s favorite meeting places.
“I’m not going to do anything stupid,” Kaz said as he shoved the door open and climbed out, his finger wrapped around the trigger of a pump action shotgun. “Nothing fucking stupid at all.”
“Remember, you kill one of the Albanians, you earn a blood debt—and you know how they are about that shit.”
Kaz did know. He just didn’t care.
His men were already waiting for him, all ready for what he would do next. Shotgun resting on his shoulder, the doors were opened for Kaz as he walked in the narrow shop, all eyes turning to him.
No one moved, nor did they speak as Kaz and the others came in—they had already been warned. A man standing near the back staircase nodded his head in its direction, a silent message that the men he was here for were upstairs.
“I’m not sure how that would be profitable for me, Mr. Shelby.”
Kaz could hear the muffled voice as he cleared the landing, heading for the office at the end of the hall. A few of Alberto’s men were standing outside the door. The moment they saw Kaz coming, they were reaching for their guns, but they saw very quickly that they were outnumbered.
“I care fuck all whether it’s profitable for you, mate. It’s the better business deal.”
Alberto didn’t get a chance to respond to Alfie’s words, not when Kaz reared back and sent his foot flying against the door. The wood splintered as it shot open, slamming back against the wall and startling the three men seated—all except Alfie. He merely sat back.
Pointing his gun at Alberto, Kaz’s aim didn’t falter. “Get up.”
Alberto grew red in the face, his anger apparent as he swung his gaze around to Alfie. But if he thought a glare was enough to move the Brit, he was mistaken. “Bad luck, mate.”
“This isn’t—”
Shifting his aim just slightly, Kaz pulled the trigger, firing a round into the potted plant just behind Alberto. The vase exploded, sending bits of pottery and dirt flying everywhere. “The next one is in your knee, old man. Move.”
This time, Alberto stood, though he kept his hands at his sides as opposed to raised high like his son’s were in the seat next to him. Appearances, Kaz thought. Even if he did feel fear, he was man enough not to show it.
Carmine, on the other hand …
Kaz was walking after Alberto when Carmine called out, “You touch my fucking—” but his words were cut off when Rus slammed the butt of his own rifle into the man’s face.
Once he was outside the office, Kaz’s men stripped him of everything besides his shirt and pants, leaving the rest on the floor behind them. With someone on either side of him, Alberto was unable to do anything but follow their direction
Rus was behind them, and once they transferred into the van, he drove them away from the restaurant and toward a nearby drop spot. Once they were in place and Alberto was secure enough that he couldn’t move, Kaz placed his gun on the table and lit a cigarette.
Alberto glared, his lips curled as he regarded him with thinly veiled disgust. “Just a boy playing a man.”
Taking another drag of his cigarette, he grabbed one of the folding chairs against the wall, dragging it back to set up in front of Alberto. Blowing the smoke out as he sat, Kaz asked the only question on his mind.
“Who the fuck do you think I am?”
“You—”
Kaz shook his head with a frown. “You forgot a key lesson when you decided to become my father’s suka, Gallucci. I’m a Markovic, and we don’t lose. Now, you either tell me where the fuck Vasily is holding my wife, or I’ll show you what Gavrill would have done to you if he were here.”
“You lack respect for authority, Kazimir. Had you been my boy, I would have killed you long before you caused me this much trouble.”
Looking at one of the men in the room, Kaz pointed at Alberto. “Has he heard a fucking word I’m saying?” Then back to Alberto. “I don’t think you understand the tangled web you’ve stepped in, Gallucci. Or have you forgotten what Vasily was willing to do to his own brother?”
And maybe that was a lesson Kaz should have thought of as well.
“You know who he is,” Kaz went on, not wanting to get trapped in his own head with his regrets. “You know what he’s capable of. Do you think he won’t hurt her to teach me a lesson?”
That was the fear he had meant when talking to Rus hours ago. Her death would be too easy for him, but torturing her would prolong the pain.
Alberto scoffed, looking away. “We have an arrangement.”
“I don’t think you understand. But maybe I should help you with that.” Kaz ashed his cigarette. “When my brother was eighteen, Vasily had his lover kidnapped, flayed alive, and left the rest of him for his mother to find. You think you really know what Vasily is capable of?”
That was enough to make Alberto jerk back, surprise lighting up his eyes, but he didn’t respond, and Kaz didn’t want him to.
“It was a lesson, you see. Vasily wanted to make sure he understood that it was his way or no way at all. Then Rus had been his favorite—I never was. So if he was willing to do that to him, imagine what he would do to Violet to get back at me.”
And there it was.
That moment of impending realization.
Alberto didn’t have to have proof of the deed because what reason did Kaz have to lie? This wasn’t about him.
“This isn’t over, Markovic. You—”
“Where is she?” Kaz didn’t care about wars that would happen later on. The only reason he wasn’t putting a bullet in Alberto right then was because that would only interfere with him getting to Violet. He just needed an answer.
“The Black Hall.”
What the hell was that?
The van door slid shut with a damning click a second before Violet was slammed down to the floor of the vehicle. Her fingernails broke against metal as she fought for purchase, coming up with nothing.
“Let me—”
Her words cut off when her face was slammed into the van’s floor.
Apparently, her attacker wasn’t all that interested in tying her hands and legs up, considering the man grabbed her by the hair and picked her up off the floor of the van before flinging her to the other side. Violet’s back hit the door with a crack, and tears spilled as the pain began to spread.
She stared the man down as he grinned at her from up above.
“Go on,” he told her, calm and smooth. “I like the ones that fight, girl, just not the ones that scream.”
Oh, Jesus.
Violet dug her clenched fists against her sides, keeping her knees tucked up high to her chest, and the rest of her body as far away from the man as she possibly could.
Still, he took a step forward. “Don’t touch me.”
He just laughed. “Such a pretty little thing, aren’t you?”
“Enough.”
That fucking voice.
Violet’s gaze swung from the man who was her current—and probably her biggest—threat, to the one driving.
Vasily Markovic.
He barely gave her a look, but for a brief second, he did meet her stare over his shoulder before his attention was back on the road.
“Make sure she’s clean,” Vasily murmured. “Especially if you’re going to leave her untied.”
Violet flinched back against the van wall when the man came closer. She didn’t want him touching her at all. As it was, the asshole might as well have ripped hair out of her head, and he likely left a few bruises behind, too.
Fuck. Him.
“Don’t touch me,” Violet repeated through clenched teeth.
“Ivan,” Vasily said, “stop wasting time.”
Violet didn’t get a blink in before the man was on her, hands pushing into her clothes and searching for what, she didn’t know. He’d said he liked the ones who fought, so she certainly didn’t mind giving him that.
And she hoped to fuck he liked the row of claw marks she put across his face.
It was only when he ripped her silk blouse did a cold spike of fear settle into Violet’s heart.
Those disgusting fucking hands didn’t stop violating until he was satisfied she had nothing hidden in her clothing.
By the time he was done, Violet had pushed herself into the very far corner, tucked her knees up high again, and glared at the man. “Stay the fuck away from me.”
Vasily chuckled dryly from the driver’s seat, and seconds later, the van pulled over. Without explaining his motives, he exited the seat, slipping into the back as Ivan took the wheel and they began moving again.
She tried not to let the unsteady movements of the vehicle taking corners bother her too much as Vasily stared her down. He knelt down a foot away from her, pulling a white cloth napkin from his pocket and holding it out to her.
Violet didn’t give the item a bit of her attention.
She knew how men like Vasily Markovic worked.
What seemed like a nice gesture was nothing more than a lie. He was a fucking snake—what comfort he might offer her was only a ruse, something to distract her into compliance so that he could suffocate her when she trusted him enough to turn her back to him.
“Fuck you,” Violet spat.
Vasily cracked the tiniest of smiles. “You surprise me, girl.”
Good for him.
Violet turned her face away but kept one eye on Vasily all the while resting back against the seat, one leg outstretched and his other bent at the knee.
“Tell me about the wedding,” Vasily said, not a hint of emotion in his tone. “I hear women love to fuss about that sort of nonsense, yes? Tell me about it.”
Violet kept her lips shut.
When she didn’t give him what he wanted, Vasily leaned forward a bit with a sigh. “Had you been my child, girl, this never would have happened. You see, my oldest girl had a fancy for a young man—Cain, I believe his name was—and I didn’t approve. There were no warnings for her. You see, I simply rid him from her life. Simple and easy.”
A chilled shiver worked its way up Violet’s spine, but still, she kept quiet.
Vasily let out another chuckle. “As your father should have done for you, I think. I might even have turned a cheek to him spilling Kazimir’s blood, considering all the trouble he’s caused me over the years. I have no patience for rebellious brats, you understand? I overlooked Kazimir’s behavior because I had no other choice. Now, he’s forced my hand. Yet Alberto seems to believe there is something worthy about you—something fixable in your rebellion.”
“I’m not a child,” Violet said, hatred coating her every word. “It’s not a phase he can wait to pass or beat out of me, you fucking idiot.”
Had Vasily been her father, Violet never would have disrespected him so blatantly, not with her tone or her curses and name-calling. She would have known better.
And maybe she should have this time.
But she didn’t know Vasily Markovic well at all.
She didn’t even see his fist coming until he knocked her out.