Torrid (Sordid 2)

“You’re going to play the family card? Didn’t stop you from killing my mother, and it didn’t stop me, either.”

His fear was halted by confusion, and I laughed.

“Oh, shit, I forgot. You still think it was Ivan who killed my father.”

His mouth fell open.

I gave him just enough time for it to soak in, then I pulled the trigger before he said another goddamn thing.

Three shots popped off, peppering his chest. Even though I wanted to go for his head and wipe his face clean from the goddamn earth, I couldn’t. There was satisfaction in killing him like this, anyway. It probably wasn’t my first bullet that ended him, and maybe not the second one either. It took a full three seconds for him to die. Three seconds of agony before his piss-poor heart stopped pumping.

As the music raged on, his body slumped in the chair, his face frozen in a horrified expression.

Unlike with my father, premeditating the death made the moment more fulfilling. I jammed my gun back in the holster, riding an adrenaline high, and admired the picture before me. The front of his shirt was dark and wet with blood. Did he realize how perfect the chair was he’d sat in? It was as close to a modern-day throne as you could get.

My kingdom now, motherfucker.

The song rolled to a close, and I turned to Oksana. She sat with her usual perfect posture, staring up at me as she turned off the music. She hadn’t shied away from what I’d done. A smile teased her lips, and her eyes swam with admiration. If I was the king, she was definitely my queen.

Filip cleared his throat, returning me to the present. There was a lot of shit that needed to be taken care of, and he seemed anxious to get started.

“My uncle was feeling lonely. There’s enough money left in his accounts to buy a plane ticket somewhere. A last-minute getaway for Christmas, or whatever the fuck. He’s going somewhere international. After you buy the ticket, pack a bag and his passport.” I dug my phone out of my pocket. “Oksana and I will clean him up and get him in the back seat. I’ll text you the address of where I want you to drive the car. The guy knows someone’s coming and he’ll take care of it.”

He nodded and headed for the door, but I stopped him.

“Call me when you’re done and I’ll pick you up. We’ve got another stop to make tonight. Oksana wants to wish her father a merry Christmas.”

“All right.” If he was nervous about that, it didn’t show. He disappeared through the doorway.

I went to Oksana, pulling her up onto her feet. She put her arms around my shoulders. “How do you feel?”

Not empty.

I felt justice, and it was sweet. “So fucking good.”

She smiled knowingly. “Like all your dreams came true?”

“One down,” I said. “One to go.”

39

Oksana

A normal person would have been horrified watching Vasilije sink three bullets into his uncle, but I wasn’t normal. All I felt was satisfaction, and envy.

Vasilije and I sat in the back, and Filip in the front beside John, and we sped through the snowy night toward the south suburbs.

At the front gate outside my father’s house, I rolled down the car window and blinked against the flurries. I gave the security guard a too-bright smile, but he recognized me anyway.

“Merry Christmas,” he said, trying to peer through the tinted windows. “Who’ve you got with you?”

“Vasilije Markovic,” I said. “He’d like to speak with Mr. Petrov.”

The guard went ashen and disappeared into his glassed-in hut, pulling the phone from his belt. After a brief discussion, we were waved through.

It was the house I’d lived in for the last four years, but it wasn’t home.

After the flight from Kazan, my father had ordered another paternity test, and when he couldn’t argue the results, Konstantine and Tatiana had welcomed me as their secret sister. My father’s wife had been warm, too, but she was a deceitful, calculating bitch. She claimed moral high ground when Sergey tried to get rid of me, and installed me in the house as staff.

Punishing him and me.

Keeping me close meant she could remind me every day what a fucking saint she was for supporting the bastard of her husband’s infidelity. I had clothes, food, a house, and even an education. She was never outright mean to me, but sometimes I wondered if it would have been better if she had been. Her fake smiles turned my stomach, and every biting comment she needled into me was impossible to defend against.

The exterior house lights were on, but the windows were dark. Two figures stood at the front steps, waiting in the falling snow. Fat snowflakes collected on the shoulders of my father’s two bodyguards.

John pulled the Lexus to a stop, and I took a breath to fortify myself.