He should probably warn Sorin, who was a solid, silent presence at his side. He didn’t. Because a part of Lucian wanted that obscurity to come out. It was his shelter of sorts, and he usually felt blissfully detached when it took over.
The moment they rounded the final corner and saw a group of familiar faces, Lucian wanted to detonate.
They received the same mistaken message you did, the voice soothed. That’s all. Get the facts, and then react.
His clipped nod encompassed Gabriel Moretti, Vincente Romani, Maksim Kirov, Micha Zaretsky, and Alek Tarasov. He didn’t take in their demeanor or expressions, but rather pointlessly wondered where Vasily was.
Then he didn’t care because he was in front of a tall counter and being offered the hand of the small Indian man who’d just scrambled to his feet.
“Dr. Singh?”
“Yes. You must be Markus’s brother.”
He nodded, feeling so proud of that fact. “Yes, I am. Show me.”
He watched as if through high definition, the man swallow hard, his throat working convulsively as his eyes shifted with discomfort and unease.
Dr. Singh motioned to the desk behind him. “I have his belongings—”
“Show me. The body,” Lucian whispered, denying the rational part of his mind that was trying to make him accept that this was happening.
The doctor hurried to lead the way into a room fifteen feet away.
There were two metal tables. One was empty. One was not. The occupied one had a bright light above it. The length and size of the body under the white sheet had a cold sweat gathering on Lucian’s forehead. Something small and scared inside him started to wail.
Dr. Singh went around and paused with his hands gripping the edge of the sheet as Lucian and Sorin took up their position.
Dark hair, a too-handsome face, and straight shoulders were revealed.
Lucian couldn’t have described what punched through his consciousness right then had someone given him a million years. It wasn’t pain. It wasn’t even agony. It was worse. Times a million. It saturated every area of his mind and every cell in his body. It stole the beauty from both his memories of the past and his hope for the future.
In seconds, his being rejected it because he just couldn’t sustain it and Lucian’s body slammed into a permanent state of present time. That present time became his safe zone. Nothing existed before it. Nothing existed after. And the present time was a dangerous place because it held no regrets. No repercussions. Just the now.
He forced himself to reach out and brush his fingers down the side of his baby brother’s cold cheek, stopping only when he reached Markus’s strong neck. He felt for a pulse.
“Call Valarius,” he murmured.
Sorin’s phone appeared in his hand within seconds.
“I want him here as soon as possible. How did this happen?” he asked the doctor while keeping his fingers pressed to that inanimate area that should have been pulsing with life.
Before Dr. Singh could answer, the door swung open, and Maksim walked in. “If you can take it, I will show you.”
He’d always respected the Russian for his fierce loyalty and brilliant mind, and normally got something of a kick out of his arrogance.
“How?”
Maksim raised a cell phone. “Surveillance video.”
“That you got where?”
“From the car park across from TarMor’s head office.”
Lucian bent and placed a kiss on his brother’s temple. “Be right back,” he whispered.
When he and Sorin reached Maksim’s side, the Russian already had the video ready to go. “Are you sure?” he questioned quietly enough that the doctor wouldn’t hear. “It shows him going down.”
“Then I need to see it.”
“I do not think now—”
He reached out and touched Sorin’s arm, shaking his head once. He nodded for Maksim to continue. After the first run-through, which was less than thirty seconds of footage, he took the phone and watched it a dozen more times. By the time he handed it back, what was left of his humanity had leeched away.
“Make sure I get a copy of that.” He motioned for the door. “Bring your boys in here.”
Maksim held his huge body stiffly. “This was supposed to be Alek.”
Lucian nodded. “From the Tarasov Bratva.”
“The shooter was his cousin, Sergei Pivchenko.”
“Yes.”
The footage had shown Markus pulling Alek’s Range Rover into Alek’s regular parking spot in an area designated for any staff of TarMor Inc.; Alek’s company. Markus had been hit in the back of the neck the moment he’d stepped out of Alek’s SUV. He’d gone down and the briefcase Lucian had given Markus last Christmas, the one that had no doubt been loaded down with paperwork that would make Alek’s company that much more successful, had fallen a few feet away. And the shooter had slowly driven off, leaving an innocent man to die in place of Alekzander Tarasov? It certainly seemed so.