Page 97 of Debt to the Mafia King
“Easy, Viktor. Be the man she needs you to be. No emotion.”
I lifted my hand, and held the gun firmly. “No mercy,” I said firmly because he was right. “We kneel for no man.”
I strode forward. There was no point creeping. My enemy knew I was there.
Coming to the end of the hallway, I paused. The room was cavernous and piled high with boxes, and in the middle was Leah.
She sat slumped over in a spindly hardback chair, the light shining right down on her like a spotlight. And right behind her stood Piotre and Manda with her damn knife.
“Be the man she needs.”
I shook off Ivan’s warning. I didn’t need it.
“Leah?” I called to hersoftly.
She didn’t move. She didn’t even flinch.
“She’s fine,” Piotre said smoothly. “I didn’t let Manda hurt her too badly. She was more of a way for me to get you here. We have a lot to talk about, don’t we?”
Slowly, I lifted my eyes from her to him and grinned. A slow, malicious grin. If he thought we had things to discuss, then we did. But it wasn’t the things he thought we did.
“Printsessa?”
She stirred, lifting her face, which was black and blue. There was blood under her nose, and her lip was split.
“Viktor?” She cried out my name like a prayer. “I didn’t tell them anything.”
“I know.” I smiled because even now, she was so fucking brave and beautiful that she took my breath away. Not missing a beat, I squeezed the trigger.
Manda dropped without a word. Her eyes were wide and glassy. A perfectly round hole in her head. I pointed the weapon at Piotre next. His eyes widened in shock. “Well, that was unnecessary.”
He didn’t look particularly bothered by her death, though.
“What did you do that for?”
Surely, he couldn’t be that stupid. Apart from I knew he was. I had been told he was. Piotre was cruel, but he didn’t have the brain cells to see what was happening here.
I shrugged. “She laid hands on my wife,” I said calmly. It was the kind of calm that scared people. And it should have terrified him. He was just too stupid to see it.
“Anyone who touches her dies,” I cocked my head to the side. “That includes you.”
“This is business, Viktor. Nothing more.”
I laughed. “You want a piece of the empire? As the bastard son of a crippled man? That’s what this is about, isn’t it? You think we are brothers.”
“I know we are.”
“He did have a bastard.” I took a step forward. “A child by another woman, which was why my mother left, but that child wasn’t you. Itwas a girl. A woman who died when she was seventeen. You’re not the prodigal son, Piotre. Your mother was a cheap whore who got knocked up by a John.” I forced myself not to look at Leah as I approached them. I wouldn’t take my eyes from him. If I did he would attack.
Right now, he was still reeling from my words. His face contorted in anger.
“She was not.”
“Oh, come on, the whole city knows.” I rolled my eyes. “But I’ll let you into a little secret. Even if you were my brother, I would still kill you.” I stepped close again this time, so close that the muzzle of my gun was almost pressed to his head.
And still the fool didn’t flinch. He really did think he was invincible.
That’s when I saw it. He had a gun of his own. Something small and ladylike, but still deadly. And it was pointed right at my wife’s stomach. He caught my line of sight and grinned. “One wrong move, Viktor. One more word out of your smug mouth about my mother, and I will—”
