Page 181 of Tarnished Tyrant (Zhukova Bratva 1)

“Not too late for him to send two men to my house to snatch up my woman, though, is it?”

My woman.The words slip out unintentionally. Belle isn’t mine. Not in the way I want her to be. But Giorgos doesn’t know that. And he came for her anyway.

“Giorgos isn’t here,” the man says yet again, holding up his hands in surrender. “The boss is out.”

The first man behind me moves for his gun, but I pivot around the soldier I’m holding and aim the one in my hand at his friend. They both freeze.

“Giorgos ought to place more emphasis on your manners. You should always use his proper title in mixed company. He should place more emphasis on your training, too. It’s far too easy to kill you.”

Both men are shaking now. They share a nervous glance. It’s pathetic, but enough to tell me what I need to know: he really isn’t here.

I drop the gun on the floor and kick it skittering down the entryway. Both men breathe a little easier.

“Tell Giorgos I want to talk to him,” I snarl over my shoulder.

Then I stalk out. As soon as I’m back in my car, I call Arslan.

“Please tell me you haven’t killed more people,” he pleads when he answers. “I just disposed of the last two. And if it’s alright with Your Mighty Bratvaness, I’d like to get some fucking shut-eye.”

“No one else is dead. Not for lack of trying.”

“Oh, you gotta be shitting me. Did he send more schmucks after you?”

“No. I came to him.”

Arslan hisses out a string of unintelligible curses. “Now, Iknowyou’re shitting me. You walked into Giorgos’s house in the middle of the night?Afteryou killed two of his men? Are you suicidal?”

“No. Homicidal.”

He blows out a breath. “You could have called me, Nikolai. Youshouldhave called me.”

“I’m calling you now.”

I know Arslan well enough to know there’s a lot more he wants to say. But he knows me well enough to know I’m not in the mood to hear it.

“Better late than never. What ill-advised adventure are we off on now?”

“Weren’t you just lecturing me about being reckless?”

“No. I was lecturing you about being reckless alone,” he clarifies. “You know I don’t like being left out.”

On a normal day, I might laugh. Tonight? Not a fucking chance. “This is a solo errand. I need to know where The Lion is.”

There’s a long stretch of silence on the other end of the line, but I know Arslan is still there. I give him time to process.

“We’re talking about an actual lion, right?” he finally asks. “A zoo escapee or something?”

“Don’t fuck with me, Arslan. Not right now. I want to know where he is. We need to talk.”

He lets out a low whistle. “Maybe you really are suicidal.”

“He is the last person on earth who could possibly hurt me,” I scoff.

“That’s not what I—” He huffs out a breath. “Why put yourself through this? Tonight of all nights?”

“Do you have his location or not?”

“Yeah, yeah, of course I have it,” he says. “Are you sure you want it?”

---