Page 101 of Bratva's Vow
My jaw clenched.
I didn’t want it to be Aistov. But why the hell hadn’t he stuck around to ensure he got paid? Was he really capable of betraying me after all I’d done for him? After seeing what I’d done to Vasiliev.
My mind spun with every possibility, every face, every interaction from the last week—hell, the last year. Nik was loyal. Darius too. I’d known Sergei longer than any of them.
Loyalty was fragile in our world. Conditional. One wrong favor, one wrong bribe, one quiet threat to someone they loved…
Fuck.
If it had to be with one of them, then the best choice was Aistov.
But why? Greed?
My fingers twitched, itching for something to hit, to break, to bleed.
The room back there was supposed to be a release. Stone was supposed to scream. To beg. To bleed until my rage burned off in the aftermath.
But I never got the chance.
And now it was caged inside me.
Thrumming.
The wheel of my thoughts turned faster, grinding against itself. Stone had been ready to talk. That wasn’t desperation. That was fear. And fear meant truth. Whoever killed him hadn’t just wanted him gone. They’d been trying to keep something buried. Something big.
And if Stone was the one they killed, with four of us in the room… then what the hell did that say about who the shooter was?
If they were after me all this time, why hadn’t they taken the shot at me?
My phone vibrated against my thigh.
Darius.
“Please tell me you caught him,” I growled.
“Sorry, Maxim. We lost him,” he said. “There was a car waiting for him. Black Audi. We got the plates. Sending it now.”
A second later, my screen lit up with a number.
I stared at it like it might mean something. But it didn’t.
Because what the fuck was a license plate?
Forged in five minutes. Swapped in one.
Nothing real.
Nothing useful.
“Send it to Archie,” I said. He was the best at the tech side of things. He would know how to trace the plate. If it was traceable.
I hung up and sat back, exhaling slowly, jaw tight enough to crack.
This wasn’t over. Stone was dead, but nothing felt finished.
If anything, it felt like something worse had begun.
Sergei flicked a glance my way. “What are you thinking?”
