Page 24 of Reign of a Billionaire
I shook my head and closed my eyes. They weren’t memories, they couldn’t be. That never happened. The cracks in my chestand my skull deepened while a dull ache drummed behind my temples, lingering for hours as I lay awake staring at the ceiling, trying to remember.
Trying to forget.
A week later, my mother and I were back in the motherland. My birthplace.
Exhaustion weighed heavily on me. I’d barely slept a wink over the past week, each night a new dream plaguing my sanity every time I dozed off. They didn’t make any sense. There was no rhyme or reason behind their recurrence, but nonetheless, each one rattled me down to my core.
Frost settled into my bones, drawing a shiver out of me. Gosh, how I hated the cold and snow.
The first snow of the Siberian winter covered the landscape, stretching beyond what my weary eyes could take in. Ironic really, since every inch of Mother’s property was drenched in crimson, the invisible blood of innocents coating every corner.
The metal gates of the mansion opened ahead, my mother’s house—my prison—looming stark white against the gray sky. No matter how clean and pristine it looked, there was no hiding the sins beyond the property line.
My mother was the first woman in her family to sit at the head of the business. She was a Pakhan—well, to some. If you asked others in the underworld, that title belonged to Illias Konstantin.
I didn’t know—nor did I care—who the rightful leader of the Russian mafia was. I wanted to burn it all to the ground.
I sometimes hoped my mother would come to her senses and see what her place in this world had cost us. I used to think my mother loved me. My twin and I had grown up wanting for nothing. We had the latest technology at our disposal, the latest fashion and gadgets and cars, but we never had our mother’s love or affection.
It was pretty early in life when both my twin and I learned that our mother loved only one child—Winter Volkov. Our father, on the other hand, wasn’t much of one. He wanted to be, but Mother had him by his balls. Edward Murphy, an Irish mobster, couldn’t do much but leave us at the mercy of the Russian underworld.
I couldn’t forgive either one of them for my sister’s sad ending. They were supposed to protect us, shield us, or at least cajole us into a false sense of safety. All they managed to do was break us.
The car pulled up in front of our home manned by four guards just as my mother’s phone rang.
“What?” she spit out angrily. “How could you lose another shipment?” A heartbeat of silence before she spoke again. “Do we have any leads?”
Two “lost” shipments of flesh in such a short timespan were bound to raise flags and hurt the business Perez and my mother had going. Not that I gave two shits about it. My goal was to crumble their empire from within and let it burn as I held the matches and a gas can.
“I’m dealing with it.”
A bead of sweat rolled down my spine, knowing exactly how my mother would deal with me. It’d be time for another one of her “sessions,” and I wasn’t sure how many more of those I could take. I hadn’t broken…yet.
I clenched my jaw, resisting the urge to bolt out of the car. Instead, I folded my hands in my lap and begged my heartto stop thundering in my chest. I listened to one side of the conversation, my gaze trained out the window.
I sat upright, keeping my eyes trained on the guards waiting for the signal to open the door. It had to come from my mother.
“Does Perez know?” Her voice was steady, but I knew what she was masking. Could feel it in the space between us on the leather seats. She sounded calm, collected, and poised. “Keep it that way. See if we can organize a shipment for the Tijuana cartel.”
Santiago was the head of the Tijuana cartel who worked with Perez and all the scum in the underworld.
My lip curled with disgust as she ended the call and gave a signal to the guards. The minute the gates swung open, I got out of the vehicle and started walking toward the front doors. The walls couldn’t be seen from here, but I felt them.
They were slowly closing in, suffocating me.
I started to climb the grand staircase that I used to play on with my twin, taking the turn toward the wing where my rooms were. The old paintings stared back at me, frowning at my state of mind.
“Where are those girls, Liana?”
My mother’s voice came from behind me. The memory of the dreams that plagued me lingered in the back of my mind. I wanted to remember the faceless man. I wanted to remember the details of my sister’s death. But I couldn’t ask her.
I knew enough to know I wouldn’t get the truth from her. Over two and a half decades under her thumb had hardened me.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Mother.” I kept my voice cool, nonplussed. “I’m tired. I’m going to?—”
“What were you doing in the Port of Washington a week ago?” I ignored the accusation in her voice. She was fishing. She didn’t know I was in the port. The tracker she thought she had on me had been removed a long time ago, and it now lived in myclutch. The one that stayed behind in the hotel room right next to hers in D.C.
I resumed walking, my mother’s heels clicking behind me as she followed me down the corridor.
