Page 116 of Shades of Grey & Gold

“And that really pisses me off, you know? Because she’s everything to me, which clearly you Volkovs had an inkling of, and there’s nothing I won’t do to get her back.”

I see his jaw working and his silence pisses me off.

“So, I’ll ask you again—” My voice is going somewhere I don’t fully recognize, somewhere past the lawyer and past the careful and past every line I drew for myself a long time ago, “where is she?”

Dmitri meets my eyes now and smiles, showing off his gold tooth for the room. And he laughs.

Something inside me—the part that has been holding the line for over forty-two hours, the part that stood in front of forty men and said we do this my way, the part that walked out of rooms like this one and stood in hallways, kept his hands clean—that part fractures, splinters into a thousand pieces.

I am on my feet before I know what I’m doing.

My hands find the front of his shirt across the table and his chair tips back as he makes a sound and the light above us swings. I lift him towards me and hear him gurgle as my knuckles push into his throat.

I am somewhere I never let myself go, somewhere dark and airless and beyond reason.

I hear my voice, but I speak without thinking.

“I’ll fucking kill you and every Volkov left in this goddamn city, do you understand? I’ll do it with my bare hands, one after the other, making each of you watch as the others take their final breaths. And maybe I’ll save you for last, Dmitri.”

His smile is gone and his eyes are bulging, like he didn’t expect the words out of my mouth. And I’m as shocked as he is, but I know my face doesn’t show it.

And I think I mean every word. No. I know I do.

Because my mind is considering every way I might go about getting this sack of shit to tell me what I want to know.

Before I can get too deep into planning, there’s a solid hand on my shoulder.

“Cal.”

One word. Nico’s voice, quieter and calmer than I have ever heard it.

I let go of the shirt. The chair rights itself. Dmitri slips down into it, breathing hard, eyes wide and fixed on me like I am something he needs to keep his eyes on.

Nico’s hand moves from my shoulder to the back of my neck for just a second—the way our parents held on to us when we were small—and then he steps around me.

“Go upstairs,” he says calmly to me, without looking at Dmitri.

“Nico—” My words are a growl.

“I got this.” His eyes hold mine and there’s nothing in them I’m used to seeing—no edge, no humor, no calculation, just steadiness. “I’ve got him.”

I look at Dmitri.

I look at my brother.

I turn and start climbing the stairs two at a time, anger rushing out of me in heavy breaths.

Before I make it up to the top, I hear Nico let out a maniacal laugh and say, “Never thought I’d get to be the good cop—don’t look relieved, Dmitri, this is gonna hurt.”

The kitchen of the warehouse is empty. Someone left a cup of coffee on the counter. I stand at the window and look at nothing and listen to the city outside and try not to think about what’s happening below me.

I think about Max instead.

I think about the way she argued with me on the plane like she wasn’t terrified, making Godfather references. The time she walked into my study full of men at the penthouse in fuzzy socks without fully knowing what it meant; eyes going wide and reminding me of just how beautiful she is in every moment, even the little ones.

I think about the way she saidtoday feels different, like the world had finally decided to let her have what she wants.

I count the minutes without meaning to and after seventeen, the door behind me opens.