From the moment Vasily’s heart had stopped beating, it felt like there was a ticking clock in Kaz’s head. Counting down each second until he was back home and could start the arrangements for Vasily’s funeral, he knew that he would have to pay his mother and sisters a visit first before he did anything.
That idea weighed on him the most.
On the flight home, he thought of taking the easy way out. He could send one of his men to deliver the news that Vasily was dead—have them lie and say it was one of Vasily’s many enemies who had finally put him in the ground. But Kaz thought it better to tell the truth than to conceal what he had done.
The truth, no matter how painful, was always easier than a lie.
Now, as he drove toward his former home with something akin to anxiousness churning in his stomach, he knew that this would probably be the last time he stepped foot in this house—at least for a while.
The cars were parked in a neat line, Vera’s Bentley parked between the twins’ cars, and their mother’s car closest to the house. Before arriving, Kaz had called Vera, letting her know that she needed to come by the house.
He didn’t doubt that she knew exactly what he had to say—he could hear it in the way she hesitated before agreeing. No part of him thought this would be easy—before Vasily had let greed corrupt his mind, he had been a loving husband, a doting father.
In times like these, it was much harder to remember the harm he had done as opposed to the good memories they shared. Even Rus had been uncharacteristically silent on the ride over, lost in his own thoughts, but once they cleared the gate, he sat up a little straighter and snapped off his seat belt.
Before he stepped out of the car, Rus said, “It’s not too late to change your mind.”
Kaz didn’t respond, letting his silence answer for him as he pocketed the keys to his Porsche and followed Rus up the front steps and into the house.
When was the last time he’d been here? Though it couldn’t have been very long ago—before the wedding, he thought—he felt like nothing had changed in the short time he’d been gone.
Just another reminder of how dependent his mother really was on Vasily. Since Vasily ran, it was like her life had come to a standstill. Kaz tried to muster up the guilt he knew he should feel, but he couldn’t, not when he still had the scar across his throat—a reminder of his father’s love.
“I totally—oh, Rus is here! And Kaz!”
Nika was the first to find them, her cell phone pressed to one ear, a smile splitting her lips as she ended the call without bothering to say goodbye. She launched herself at Rus first, earning a chuckle from the big man before she gave Kaz the same treatment, nearly strangling him with the force of her grip.
“I feel like it’s been forever since I last saw you guys,” she said looking back and forth between them.
Seeing her like this, untouched by the grief their world sometimes brought, Kaz felt that familiar flicker of hesitation. He could just tell his mother and Vera, he reasoned. They were older and could process what he would say better than two seventeen-year-olds.
But wouldn’t he want to know?
Wouldn’t he have demanded that whoever was delivering the news tell him as well? He remembered all too well what he had been like as a teenager, wanting to be treated like he was older than he was.
Even if he wanted to spare them, they would learn—he would have, had the positions been reversed.
“Where are—”
“What’s all the commotion about?” Vera asked, appearing from around the corner, quickly followed by Irina and Dina. “Oh, Kaz. It’s about time you got here. You do remember that I work, right? I can’t just take off whenever I feel like it.”
Vera didn’t ramble, nor did she really say more than she had to—that was just who she’d always been. She was nervous, worried about what he was going to say, but Kaz didn’t doubt she knew the answer, even as she pretended she didn’t.
For whose sake, he wondered.
“You should sit—all of you.”
His younger sisters didn’t question him, half-absorbed in whatever was more interesting on their phones. Ruslan sat between them, knowing that once Kaz said what he needed to, he would take care of them.
Irina, on the other hand, blinked before her eyes narrowed. “What’s happened?”
Kaz sighed. “Ma—”
“You forget that I am your mother, Kazimir. You don’t command me in my own home.”
Vera laid a hand on Irina’s shoulder, her expression shifting from her usual indifference. “Mama, maybe it would be a good idea—”
Ignoring her, his mother stood her ground, tired eyes trained on Kaz. “Why are you here? You made it quite clear where you stood the last time you walked through those doors.”
“It’s about Vasily.”
“Your father,” she said.
A statement.
A reminder.
But he needed neither.
“Have you both finally settled whatever petty disagreement you had?”
A bit of Kaz’s control slipped. “I wouldn’t consider having my throat slit and left to die a petty disagreement.”
Nika gasped, but Rus quickly quieted her. Irina tried to hide her flinch, but she wasn’t quite able. Her gaze dropping to the floor a moment, she collected herself before asking, “What about your father? When is he coming home?”
There was no easy way to say it, and at that moment, Kaz was reminded of a time when he was a boy and had gotten in trouble in school. That entire journey home, he had worried what she would say once she learned, how upset she would be.
Kaz didn’t fear many things, but he had always feared breaking the hearts of the women he loved.
“He won’t be,” he forced out before he could change his mind.
Vera understood right away, her eyes widening, but there wasn’t any sympathy—not for Vasily, anyway.
“Did you exile him to Russia since you’ve taken his seat?”
Kaz scrubbed a hand down his face. “No, he’s never coming here, there, or anywhere. Ever.”
For the longest time, she merely stared at him, disbelief flickering in her eyes until the tears welled and her lip trembled. “What did you do, Kazimir?”
“Is he dead?”
The question came from Nika, her hand shaking as she brought it up to cover her mouth. Rus, grabbing her hand and Dina’s, pulled them from the room a moment before Dina let out a noisy sob, her tears falling freely.
But Kaz’s attention was quickly snapped back to his mother when he felt the sharp sting on his cheek from her hand. He tensed but kept his hands at his side, though turning back to face her. For the first time in his life, he saw an emotion from her he never thought she would aim at him.
Hate.
“Tell me it was someone else,” she demanded. “Tell me it was just an order you agreed to simply because it was going to happen regardless. Don’t you dare tell me you killed your own father!”
He wouldn’t, but it didn’t matter.
Not when his silence gave her the same answer.
Irina shoved him, using both of her hands and all of her strength. She poured every bit of hurt and anger into the assault, sending him back a step.
Kaz allowed it, welcomed it even.
Because he knew, very soon, he wouldn’t get anything from her at all. “I took care of everything. The funeral—”
Her agonized wail pierced the air a moment before her fists pounded his chest. Still dry-eyed—though even she felt something in the face of their mother’s pain—Vera reached to pull Irina away, but Kaz gave a sharp shake of his head.
This was his penance—he didn’t intend to make it easy for himself.
When her strength finally waned, he caught her, pulling her tight to his chest, even as she sobbed, the sound of it nearly stopping his heart.
An apology was all he had to offer because there was nothing left. “Izvinite, Mama—I’m sorry.”
Only one funeral stuck out in Kaz’s memory, though he had been to many.
Gavrill’s violent death in the streets of Brighton had brought many—both family and friends, even associates—back from the motherland. Everyone had wanted to come and pay their respects to a man loved and feared—a man that was mourned.
Many came for Vasily as well, spectators in all black, but as Kaz surveyed the crowd behind mirrored aviators, he didn’t think a single person, outside of the women at his side, was upset by Vasily’s death.
But everyone kept up appearances, if only for Irina’s sake.
Her sobs had finally stopped two days ago, once she accepted that it was done—she too had a part to play.
A man, whose name Kaz didn’t bother to remember, spoke gallantly as he promised of Vasily going to a better place, offering words of encouragement where they weren’t needed.
Kaz then focused on the media vans parked along the cemetery’s edge, along with the people who stood near them. By now, everyone in the five boroughs would know Vasily was dead.
But he only cared about one.
Alberto Gallucci.
The last little pin he needed to knock over.
A day passed and then another. With each one, Violet’s paranoia only became worse. Someone now knew her secret, even if that someone didn’t want to use what he knew to hurt her.
Or so Caesar said.
If there was anything in this life that Violet had learned, it was to trust no one.
No one was out to help or benefit her.
Not when they had to look out for themselves.
Yet Caesar had said nothing about Violet’s pregnancy so far. In fact, that same morning he figured out her secret, he and his father had joined her family for breakfast before Angelo said goodbye and caught a flight back to Philadelphia. The whole time, Caesar kept the conversation going between her family and his own father like nothing was amiss.
But before Angelo had left for his flight, her father finally said the word she had been dreading.
Marriage.
At first, it was shocking, even if she had already known from spying.
Alberto had posed the offer of marriage without even the air of suggestion, as though he didn’t intend to argue about it at all with her. Her refusal fell on deaf ears, and she’d been left not knowing what else to say.
Her opinion didn’t matter, according to her father.
She had done this to herself—to him.
Her current marriage would not be of any importance soon.
Violet was left struck silent and panicked.
It was only a matter of time, apparently.
She had never wanted Kaz more than in those moments, during that short, stiff conversation when she was left feeling like her father’s possession to do with what he wished whenever he wished to do it.
All the while, Caesar had stood across the room, sipping on whiskey and looking as blank as a piece of paper. He hadn’t shared an opinion as to what was happening, almost as if he didn’t care that it was going on right in front of him.
His father, on the other hand, could not have looked more pleased.
At some point, Violet figured the best thing for her to do was to play her father’s game like she intended to win it. Whatever game her father was playing, of course. She was already married—she was not marrying someone else.
Kaz was hers.
She was his.
And even if she hadn’t been pregnant, she still wouldn’t do any of this.
There was only one other person who seemed as though he too had his own end game where Alberto and Angelo’s plans were concerned, and that was Caesar. If she was to believe what Caesar had alluded to, then he did not intend to marry anyone ever—certainly not Violet, anyway.
So what other choice did she have?
Caesar’s way of playing their games was to make them believe he was compliant to their wishes.
Until Violet had a better plan of action, or finally got word from Kaz that he was coming for her, she would have to do the same.
It still felt bad, though.
Unsafe.
The snakes were everywhere.
Violet didn’t want to be the idiot who stepped on one.