Page 2 of Ruined By Sin

I pinch the bridge of my nose and sigh hard. My brother's way of leading this family is to let situations play out thoroughly and actin aggression only when absolutely necessary. It was the way of our father and our grandfather before him. And it's a good way to lead an organization like this.

Folks start to see that you're a reasonable person who can be negotiated with peacefully. But they learn how decisive and strict you can be when they cross you too. Because when we do move, we don't make mistakes.

But jumping right into an attack with only small fires being lit doesn't follow that ideology. Still, I could see how great a forest fire this little spark could kindle and how quickly it would consume everything we hold dear. The city, and our club, are primed for a hostile takeover, just waiting for the right ember to fall into dry tinder.

"Roman's not gonna want a mess," I say.

"Roman's gonna lose everything if we wait. I can keep it clean and save his ass if you let me." Morin's mouth works in a chewing motion. It's his tell. I've seen it in a million scenarios over the course of twenty-plus years. He is anxious, and for good reason. We pay his bills and keep his life comfortable. If we go down, he's got nothing to show for twenty years of working with the same family. It's not like the Mirovs are gonna draft him if they take over. He'll lose everything, the same as us.

That's enough to make anyone anxious.

"Give me the room," I tell them, because I have to think. "And don't say a word to Roman yet." I specifically lock eyes with Yegor. "I will tell him myself, and I will make sure everything is communicated clearly."

He doesn't look happy with me, but he nods." Yes, sir," Yegor says as he stands.

Kaz follows, slapping Yegor on the ass as he passes. "See ya at the bar," he calls over his shoulder, and the two of them waltz out together. But Morin stands more slowly, lingering as he locks his tablet and tucks it under his arm.

"For what it's worth, I think you're doing a good job of handling things while Ro is busy with the guns." He hovers over me, waiting for me to respond, and though I asked for the room, I'm not easily annoyed by his lingering.

He knows me better than my own family for a good reason. I learned really young that I don't fit in around here. Roman got all the praise for being a fighter. Our grandfather saw something different in me when I would shy away from the ring, and he pushed me toward education. I think he hoped I would get business acumen and make them money, but coding and hacking sucked me in. Hence, my security role.

But Morin and I were inseparable, anyway. He belonged in the ring with Ro, not at a computer with me. And now that we're adults, having barely survived our teenage years—no doubt thanks to his saving my ass more than once—I owe him.

"Yeah, well, the stress of it all is eating at me. I'm not sure I want this job." I chuckle as he taps the tablet a few times.

"Look, I know you have your hands full. That's why you asked me to step up, and I gave you my word that I wouldn't let you down." His eyes darken as he says, "And I haven't yet, have I?"

The vivid image of that man in the bar in Yekaterinburg who tried to kill me flashes into my mind. If Morin hadn't been there...

"No, you have never let me down," I say numbly, still feeling a mountain of debt I owe to this man.

"Then trust me to do the job. Mirov has to go, and as much of his family as possible. We're not playing games. If we take them all out, this ends everything we've been going through for years. The whole city sees us as strong again, and no one else will dare tempt us."

The intensity of his stare convinces me. That and the fact that he's right. Squashing the first ant makes it release a chemical that tells other ants not to go that way, so they'll avoid the same dangers. Mirov is one in a million. If we let him creep in, the others will follow. And we may be strong, but we can't take them all at once.

"There's a meeting they do once a month, according to my sources. Tomorrow night... I'll show up with a team and wipe out the lot of them. Then we'll plan a strategy to make several clean hits, make them look like accidents, and when Mirov's strength is weakened, I'll crush the final few."

He waits, huffing a few times because I’m taking so long to answer. It's well within my power to approve something like this, but I never have because Roman is so strict about his ways. But if Morin says it's this big of a threat, we need to move now. No time to try to produce evidence and convince my brother to strike.

"Do it... But it can't tie back to us... And keep it quiet. I have to tell Ro before he finds out some other way." I scrub a hand over my face and watch him walk to the door.

When he gets there, he turns over his shoulder and says, "You're making the right move." Then he nods and walks out.

I just hope he's right.

Because if we're seen as attacking the Mirovs instead of defending ourselves, the whole city will erupt into chaos again.

2

KIRA

My cousin Nika throws a dumpling at her brother’s head and it hits him square in the ear. He doesn't even flinch. He picks it off his shoulder, inspects it, and eats it while maintaining direct eye contact with her, and Nika shrieks so loudly, the older men at the end of the table all look up from their plates at the same time with identical expressions of exhausted tolerance.

"You two are animals," I say, but I'm laughing so hard, my ribs hurt. It's good to have a younger crowd here tonight instead of just the stodgy old men who run this place.

"He started it." Nika points her fork at her brother. "He said my highlights make me look like a raccoon."

"I said a cute raccoon," Alexei corrects, which earns him another dumpling, this one bouncing off his forehead. He catches it, bobbling it for a second before that, too, goes into his gaping mouth with a grin. I swear he did that to get more food—the guy can eat.