Page 149 of Filthy Lies

“Find the shooter!” I roar at my men as they secure the perimeter. “Bring him to me alive!”

The blood won’t stop. It soaks through my shirt, my pants, pools beneath us both like we’re two sinners baptized in crimson. Arkady’s skin is turning gray, his eyes glazing over.

“Medic’s coming, boss,” someone says from above me.

I barely hear them. All I can focus on is the life draining out of my best friend’s body. The man who couldn’t pull the trigger. The man who took a bullet meant for me.

“You asshole,” I breathe. “You fucking, goddamn asshole. How dare you make me mourn you, you son of a bitch? Don’t you fucking… don’t you fucking…”

I can’t even finish the sentence.

The medical team arrives, pushing me aside to work on him. They’re speaking in urgent tones, calling for blood and plasma, but I can read the grim certainty in their eyes.

He’s dying.

And I know—I fuckingknow—my father is behind this.

Just as I know what I have to do now.

The rage that’s been building since Arkady’s gun pressed against my forehead finally breaches its frozen containment. It roarsthrough me, volcanic and unstoppable, burning away every restraint, every consideration, every ounce of humanity I’ve cultivated for Rowan’s sake.

I stand, covered in Arkady’s blood, and meet Rowan’s terrified gaze as she appears on the rooftop.

She sees it in my eyes. The change. The breaking point.

“Don’t,” she whispers, stepping toward me. “Vince, please. The FBI?—”

“Will have to wait,” I interrupt.

“They won’t wait!” she pleads. “If you go after your father now, you’ll ruin everything. You’ll end up in prison, or worse.”

I look down at my blood-drenched hands. At Arkady being loaded onto a stretcher, oxygen mask strapped to his ghostly-pale face. At the men I’ve chosen to surround myself with, all watching to see what I’ll do next.

The decision rips through me like a second bullet.

“Get my jet ready,” I order my security chief, striding toward the roof access door. “And tell Dimitri to prepare the warehouse. The one my father doesn’t know about.”

“Vince!” Rowan follows me, desperation in her voice. “Think about Sofiya. Think about us.”

I stop, turn to face her. Her eyes are wide with fear—notofme, butforme. For what I’m about to become.

“Iamthinking about you,” I tell her, cupping her cheek with a hand still wet with Arkady’s blood. “And also about Sofiya and the world I want her to inherit. I intend to give her a world wheremen like my father don’t get to destroy families and walk away unscathed. And I’m going to do it my way.”

“And if you get caught? If the FBI?—”

“If I get caught, then I get caught.” I press my forehead against hers, breathing her in, memorizing the scent that’s kept me human all these long months. “But I won’t live in a world where I let him take everything from me and did nothing.”

I pull away, and the sudden distance between us feels infinite.

“You have to choose, Vince,” she says, tears welling in those green eyes that have always seen straight through me. “Your vengeance or your family. You can’t have both.”

I look at her for a long moment, knowing the truth that burns inside me. The fire of the choice I’ve already made.

“Why not?” I ask. “I’m Vincent fucking Akopov. I take what I want. I always have. I always will.”

55

ROWAN

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