“I respect you showing up here. To me, that means Sacha and Lekzi are more important to you than your balls.”
Justin took his hand. “In a situation like the one I was just told about, yes, the ladies take precedence.” He was angry but controlling it. “I’m sorry your uncle was injured.”
“Thank you.”
With as much friendliness as he could muster, he patted Sacha’s friend on the shoulder and moved aside. As the attorney took Sacha up in the same kind of hug Caleb had just given Eva, Alek met his woman’s eyes and released the last vestiges of resentment he’d been harboring for the time he’d missed with Lekzi. It became as simple as focusing on everything ahead of them, rather than what was behind them.
Back to the swinging doors his attention went, and the ten-minute reprieve from the anxiety gnawing through his guts was over. He blinked when Eva passed in front of him, her nails tapping against each other in a nervous habit she had. She was pale, her eyes were puffy, and the tension lines bracketing her mouth wobbled every few seconds as if she was trying not to break down.
“Mother. Fuck,” Maks breathed as he stared at his phone, his eyes wide. “What the hell is he doing?”
“Who?” Gabriel asked tiredly as if he didn’t want to deal with anymore.
“Vlad the Impaler incarnate.”
Maks passed the phone around—to the men only—and when it came to Alek, his jaw locked up as he looked at the ten-second movie clip that played over and over on a loop. It was his cousin, impaled on a twenty-foot spike that was stuck in the ground in the front of Lucian’s Southampton home. Sergei would twitch and then go limp, making it clear he was still alive. Because the place was secluded, the grisly sight wouldn’t be seen by the general population, but still. Holy fuck.
“I’m no longer worried Fane will kill him too quickly,” Maks muttered as he took the phone back.
Almost as if it were planned, everyone’s phones started vibrating at once. Apparently, Maks wasn’t the only one who’d gotten the gif, and reaction to the torture of Vasily’s nephew was coming in from their people. Then, questions started trickling in from powerful Bratvas based in Houston, Chicago, Miami, L.A., Montreal, Toronto, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Paris, London, Madrid…the list went on and on.
Lucian Fane was sending a broad and deadly message to even the darkest corners of the organized crime world. But what was it? A warning not to fuck with the Fanes? Or was he informing them that he’d lost his goddamn mind?
“He has every right,” Alek said as Sacha came over to give him a warm hug. She had no clue what he’d just seen, so it had to have been appreciation for him not kicking her friend out. “Sergei needs to suffer for what he did,” he added, accepting a kiss on the cheek.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
He pressed his lips to her hair as Gabriel agreed.
“Same. Markus deserves—”
“Markus deserves to be alive,” Eva interrupted. Her voice was raspy in her exhaustion, but the suppressed anger burned through. There was a hardness in her eyes that had never been there before. “So does my mother. But they’re not, and all because of an incident they had nothing to do with. If I also lose my father to that man…”
Alek didn’t think she was aware of it, but Gabriel sure as fuck was when she winced, and her hand went down to rub across the underside of her belly.
She laughed in a watery burst. “Do you want to hear something stupid?” she asked her husband. “I’m wondering if this was how Stefano felt after Adrianna was killed?”
“He hasn’t been killed,” Maks growled with a steely glare.
Eva met that glare head on. “If he dies, I will want someone to pay for it. For the first time in my life, I get it. I totally get this need for vengeance that I’ve never understood. Not even when those people took my mother. But now? I’m identifying with this thing that lives inside all of you. If my dad dies not even a year after they took my mom, what will I do with that fire burning my chest? How will I get past what Sergei has taken from me?”
“He hasn’t been taken,” Maks said louder. The note of pure agony that weaved into his voice had Sydney sliding the tray of sandwiches she’d just brought in from the kitchen onto a low table. She gave up on seeing to everyone and tucked herself into Maksim’s side.
“You’re not hearing me, Maksim!” Eva snapped as she lifted a shaking arm and pointed an onyx-pained fingernail at the door. “If Tegan walks out of there and tells me my time with him is up already, I’m going to want someone to pay for that but he’s already as good as dead! Who will I make suffer then? Who?”