Page 80 of Savage Boss
The confession hits me like a lightning strike. Behind me, Pavel shifts, as though ready to grab me if I should go after Natasha in a killing rage.
“You wanted Lauren gone?” Again, Natasha flinches.
“I never got over you, Dmitri.” Her dark eyes look into mine, her tone pleading. “I tried, but I couldn't. He said he would get revenge for me. But I told him not to, Dmitri. I made him swear he wouldn't do it.”
Her hand grips my arm, as though that will somehow make me believe she is entirely innocent of any of this. Andrey and I have always been at odds. If I were to have an archenemy, he has been it since I set foot on American soil. Our feud is about territory, power, money, what I have, and what he wants. But now he's disguised it as care for his sibling. It's a sick love layered over a twisted, decades-old hatred.
My vision narrows.
My dead wife. My lost child. All because this spoiled woman in front of me wanted Lauren's happiness for her own. All because her brother has spent his entire existence focused on my downfall. I could kill Natasha right now. I could empty the magazine of my gun into her chest and feel nothing but relief and joy in the fact that I have taken the one thing in this world that Andrey cares about. But I need to find Clara, and I need Natasha alive in order to do it.
I force myself to take a steadying breath.
“If you ever cared for me, if you ever truly wanted my happiness, you will tell me where your brother would take Clara.”
She wipes the back of her hand across her face, leaving a wet smear of tears and makeup. Then she gestures to the back of the house. “Papa's old office. There's a safe behind one of the bookshelves. The room was left out on the original architectural blueprints of the remodel. I'm not supposed to know about it, but I was curious as a child because I knew the window didn't belong to any room.”
“The combination?” Pavel's voice is sharp and demanding, pulling me back to the mission.
Natasha struggles for composure, fighting through the emotional shock of her own confession and the knowledge that she is about to betray her own flesh and blood.
Pavel's footsteps retreat to the back of the house to find the office and the hidden room. Natasha and I wait in silence. Natasha sits slumped on the couch, knowing her own life will be utterly destroyed. She has traded her brother's existence for a moment of atonement, a desperate plea for my forgiveness, or at least my understanding.
She stands and moves to the wet bar, pouring herself a drink, which she downs quickly.
The moments tick by slowly, and I wonder what Pavel has found, if anything. There is, of course, a good chance this is all a lie, part of Andrey's plan. Andrey, who took the two most important things in my life, wants everything I have, and is now threatening to take the only light I have left.
Finally, Pavel's footsteps echo through the silent house. He looks at Natasha and pulls out a folder, which he no doubt stuffed with whatever he could from the secret room.
“What is Skyline Holdings?”
She pours a second glass of amber liquid. “Skyline Holdings?” Her eyebrows furrow in confusion and thought. “It's a company, a shell company Andrey purchased several years ago. He owned several properties with it, mostly around Brooklyn. Warehouses mostly, old dock storage. A few old buildings. My company runs the books for Skyline Holdings.”
My senses sharpen, like a hunter scenting its prey. “Where?”
More thought. “There's a loft conversion inBushwick. There’s also a cold storage facility and an old hotel nearGowanus. There are a few others, but I'd have to get you the information.” She shivers and wraps her arms around herself, as if a cold chill just went through her. “If he wants to make you watch, if he wants to play, he would put her in a place that feels most like a tomb. He likes the places that the world forgot about.”
She closes her eyes, a single tear leaking down her cheek.
“I'm sorry, Dmitri. I'm so sorry.”
I stare at her, rage tempered by sharp focus. The apology is meaningless because the pain she caused me cannot be undone. But the information she gives me now is everything.
“You are still alive, Tasha,” I tell her, my voice low and devoid of emotion. “Let that be your comfort.”
I turn and leave without a backward glance, hearing tempered sobbing as I go.
“Send us every single address you have from Skyline Holdings,” Pavel demands, before his heavy boot steps follow.
I stop on the top step, breathing in the freezing night air, looking up at the dim crescent of the moon between the skeletal tree branches. I breathe in deeply, the adrenaline and love for thehunt singing through my blood before I send the message to my men to begin the assault on the Mikhailov Bratva.
Andrey wants to bring me pain. He wants to bring down my empire.
He doesn't know what kind of devil he’s just unleashed. He will learn the true meaning of loss, and I will be the one who teaches him.
It starts now.
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