Total pages in book: 138
Estimated words: 127461 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 637(@200wpm)___ 510(@250wpm)___ 425(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 127461 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 637(@200wpm)___ 510(@250wpm)___ 425(@300wpm)
“I see you have company. Albert Krylov. It has been years.”
Krylov nodded but made no move to greet Gorya properly, clearly determined to get the upper hand. “It has. I hear you recently found your mate.” There was a slight edge of contempt in his voice. “Dare I say congratulations?”
Braum winced at the disrespect. That wasn’t the way to handle Gorya Amurov. He wouldn’t have been shocked if Timur stepped forward and backhanded the man.
Gorya lifted an eyebrow. “You needn’t bother, not when you don’t mean it. What you might do is tell Braum and the others the story of what happened so many years ago when Patva sent one of his trusted teams to his whorehouse. You weren’t there, but you heard the story. I was there, the only survivor.”
Krylov lifted an eyebrow. “You mean when you were forever after branded the coward? Why would you want me to relate such a story of their pakhan? The shame of just that story would be too much for them to want to follow you, but the aftermath and what you became would be too much for them to endure if they knew.”
Krylov was clearly taunting Gorya deliberately, as if he could blackmail the man into silence—into leaving.
Gorya didn’t look in the least upset. In fact, his expression didn’t change at all. “I think Braum will understand why it’s important to hear that particular story. He’ll find it very entertaining and pertinent. So please, tell all of it, every detail.”
“If you insist,” Krylov said.
He proceeded to explain in detail how the men had gone to the whorehouse to use the women.
“And children,” Gorya added quietly. “Don’t leave out the part of grown men using children for sex.”
Braum flicked his gaze to Gorya’s hard features. There was no change in expression. No change in that soft tone whatsoever, but a chill went down his spine. For the first time, instead of the thrill he got from facing a brilliant opponent, he had the impression of a dangerous predator looming over him. Not just dangerous. Far more than that.
Children. Was that Gorya’s trigger? Was that why he was here at four o’clock in the morning? Braum desperately wanted to text his son and ask where he was. A dark premonition crept in. They’d taken Leo’s daughter. Did Gorya consider fifteen to be a child?
Albert Krylov didn’t seem to notice that Gorya was a predator. He had a fixed idea of who the man was and refused to entertain any other version.
Even as Krylov told the story, Braum kept his gaze fixed on Gorya’s features, studying him carefully. He was aware of the others in the room, the security spread out, but they had faded into the background. Gorya was the one who mattered. He was lethal, at the top of the food chain. Braum had carefully avoided Gedeon, knowing his reputation and sensing the man would see more than Braum could afford for him to see. Gorya had hidden the predator under a charming facade, easily bought. His reputation had been the weak link in the Amurov family, one he had clearly cultivated over the years.
Krylov’s tone turned almost gleeful as he described the massacre found by Patva and his men in the whorehouse. The dead soldiers. The dead guards. No women or children. No tracks other than a few leading inland away from the harbor. Only Gorya had survived with a few injuries, his body hidden among the dead.
Patva had beaten him thoroughly in front of the others and branded him a coward. They determined a rival pakhan had declared war by stealing the whores they had contracted to sell. Gorya never so much as blinked when Krylov, his voice filled with disgust and contempt, told those at the table how Gorya was punished with torture and rape since the whores were gone and the men would need a body to use until the next shipment came in.
There was silence following the story. No one so much as scraped a chair or moved. Braum’s heart nearly ceased beating. Krylov wasn’t nearly as intelligent as Braum had thought. Another terrible mistake on his part. I’m sorry, Celine.
“How long did it take you to kill them all, Gorya?” Braum forced his gaze to meet those flat, dead eyes. Pure frost. Ghost eyes.
“It was a standard team of his men, plus the guards. Once I started killing, they all had to go down. I had seconds, so less than a minute or so.” Gorya made it sound casual. Easy.
Krylov bristled. “That’s impossible. He was a kid. A scrawny teenager. A coward. I lived there, knew him. A grown man couldn’t have done that alone. Those killed were trained soldiers.”
Braum ignored him. The man was dead already and didn’t know it. No one would allow such a story to be told if he planned on letting those hearing it live. Gorya had spent far too much time fabricating his reputation as charming and easygoing.