The Bratva's Heir (Underworld Kings)

Me: Got it.

Ah. So that’s what his friend was doing.

With shaking hands, I reach into the gauzy pocket of my costume. Huh. I didn’t even know it had a pocket, but Constantine was one step ahead of me.

I turn so my back’s to everyone and look at it. It’s obviously something high tech and beyond my capabilities, similar to a surveillance camera tucked into a boulder. When I hold it in the palm of my hand, it just looks like any old rock, but when I tip it upside down, I can see little filigree wiring and a tiny microphone.

Alrighty then.

I draw in a deep breath. I walk over to the garden where a variety of rocks lay, and wonder how I’ll get this over to them without anyone noticing.

I have to do this.

It feels almost surreal that after everything that’s happened—the brutal death of Roxy, and Constantine’s incarceration, nameless deaths and crimes committed—that the outing of the truth comes down to a fake rock being rolled under the seats of the guilty parties.

Thankfully, the rowdy crowd comes back my way just in time. I pretend to trip, fall to my knees, and roll the rock just as they walk by me. I hold my breath—I haven’t even come up with a plan B—then release it with a silent thrill of victory. It’s there.

It lands.

I turn, pretending I didn’t just drop a bug that probably signed the death sentence for my own father.

I’m a different woman now, though. I’ve seen the rawest side of humanity and the evil people are capable of. I’m not as innocent as I once was. Now, I’ve chosen the side of the men who know the meaning of loyalty and honor.

When I reach the landing, I see Constantine’s cousin Emmanuel standing beside me. I look at him in confusion. I didn’t expect him to be the one Constantine sent to me.

“This way. Follow me.” His hand on my elbow, he guides me none too gently to a hallway that leads to the exit. He quickens his step, and I look wildly about me for Constantine.

“Where’s Constantine?”

“Waiting for us.”

Something isn’t right. Something’s gone wrong, I know it.

“I don’t believe you,” I say. I pause at the door, shaking off his hand and refusing to go another step.

He turns to me, his eyes furious, and grabs for me, but I won’t let him touch me. I dodge his arm, and by instinct, kick him straight between the legs, just as a hulking shadow rises behind Emmanuel.

“Of all the people to betray me,” Constantine says in a furious whisper. Emmanuel’s on the floor, cursing me out and grabbing his balls. I’m shaking with nerves and anger, but Constantine’s ready to kill.

“You dare to touch my woman!”

“I didn’t—didn’t—touch her!” Emmanuel gasps.

“You tried to, and that’s the same fucking thing,” Constantine growls. He kicks Emmanuel in the belly, then drags him to his feet by his hair. “You will pay for that.”

He shoves Emmanuel at two of his men behind him. “Bring him with us to listen to the recording. Leave his punishment for me.”

Constantine turns to me. “Well done, little bird,” he says in a voice affected by emotion. “Come with me, now. You deserve to hear the truth as much as any of us do.”

Constantine leads me to a room with him, and he never takes his eyes off me, his hands on me at all times.

“I lost you once,” he says in a heated whisper. “I don’t want to ever lose you again.”

Emmanuel is cursing behind us. Constantine turns to him and curses back in a heated whisper.

“Wish I knew Russian,” I mutter.

Yury laughs beside me. “Those are not the words you’d want to hear. It would be hard to imagine your lover kissing you with a mouth like that.”

Constantine’s eyes twinkle.

I wonder at their lightheartedness. After everything Constantine’s been through, how can he smile like this?

Maybe it’s because for the first time in so long… he’s on the cusp of being free. Free from the bonds that held him. Free from the accusations of the Irish.

I want this all over now. I want this all behind us.

It feels surreal to sit in what looks like a meeting room, Constantine beside me and his men all around us. Someone hits a speaker, and my father’s voice comes loud and clear, along with that of the chief of police.

“What happened at the warehouse?” my father demands.

“It was Rogov. It doesn’t matter—we moved the product again.”

“We should have just killed him,” my father says, annoyed.

A chill goes down my spine. Even after all I’ve seen, I can’t believe my father is discussing murder in the same tone of voice he employs when instructing our gardener.

Constantine’s jaw is set. He runs his thumb along the top of my hand, thoughtfully.

“It was you who wanted the conviction,” Parsons snarls back. “You had to have the whole media circus, as per fucking usual.”