Page 119 of Rapunzel Is Losing It

I blinked, but nobody else appeared behind him. There was no logical way they could have landed in Paris, killed Luka’s father, and already be back here. That was humanly impossible. Which meant…

“You didn’t go to Paris.”

“Nope.”

“You left Victor alone?” I’d known we couldn’t trust him. My stomach lurched because Victor didn’t have a backup. And whilehe was alone in Paris - I was alone in a small crypt, and Luka was blocking the only way out.

“My father told me to stay. I could only push back a little without him getting too suspicious, but it looks like that was for the best.” Luka took another drag and grimaced. “There may or may not be two dead Russians in your driveway.”

“What?”

“You didn’t think my Dad would just let you play your little social media games without trying to retaliate, did you? Victor’s about to be useless to him, so you were fair game.”

I blinked. “You killed your father’s men to protect me?”

“Yup.” He sighed and waved for me to follow him when he hopped down the stairs of the mausoleum. “Let’s find your friend before she spots the bodies, and then it’s time you learned the truth about Victor.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Petya had confiscatedmy phone the second the airplane had touched ground, but this was too far. His whole entourage had herded me into the hotel room but fuck this. He could lock me in this room for all I cared, but sharing it with my trainer like I was a teenager on a field trip?

“Money running out?” I raised my brows at the second bed in the room. Yury threw his suitcase on it, and didn’t heed me any attention as he started his whole hotel routine. Apparently that hadn’t changed over the years.Fresh shave, fresh breath, fresh socks.“Or do I need a babysitter?”

“You have a tendency to run off, son.” Petya stepped aside to let Yury disappear in the bathroom.

“Where would I run? We’re in France, for fuck’s sake.”

I hated that my frustration was showing, and I hated how Petya smirked and shrugged. “I’m not taking the risk.”

“What are we doing in Paris? What amIdoing in Paris?”

“Vitya, you are irrelevant.”

“What?”

My uncle’s dark eyes dropped to Yury’s silver suitcase, opened on the bed, then shifted to the bathroom.

I stayed still. The faucet was still running but there was no other noise, no break in the water stream.

Before I even had the chance to go for the bathroom door, two of my uncle’s men shouldered their way past him with two large UFC duffels. In a perfect fucking world full of butterflies and rainbows, I wouldn’t have clocked it immediately. But I’d grown up with this. Two duffels, because Yury’s body wouldn’t fit in one.

Fuck.

“What the hell did he do?” And why the fuck did they have to get rid of him in Paris?

Just as I mentally prepared myself for cleaning up Yury’s blood for the rest of the night, the door to the connected room opened and Yury walked in. Which made no fucking sense. Yury had gone to the bathroom.

“Zdraviya zhelaju.” Yury saluted my uncle. Except it wasn’t Yury. The voice didn’t match. Same height, same built, same face with the groove down the chin.

“Victor, Yury. Yury, Victor,” Petya chuckled, clearly pleased with his showmanship.

He’d switched them.

“I don’t even want to know who you are,” I told the man who had obviously undergone enough surgery to look like my trainer of twenty years.

“Did you ever look at Yury’s eyes, son?” Petya asked, and I hated myself for checking thenewYury’s eyes. Blue, except fora patch of dark brown in his left eye. I’d seen the same eyes a million times. It had freaked me out the first time I’d seen them as a kid, because it had looked like Yury’s pupil was leaking into his iris. I hadn’t thought about them in years.

The pieces clicked together in time with the unmistakable chop of a butcher’s knife in the bathroom.

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