They hadn’t said much then.
They didn’t say much now.
Kolya and Pav already had their guns aimed, and he pulled back the trigger on the weapon easily. He wasn’t as good of a shot with a gun as Kolya was, though. Where Pav missed his first two shots, Kolya nailed each and every one of the men with clean head shots.
Pav decided he needed to learn that skill …
Another time.
They rounded the corner quickly, stepping over the dead bodies of the three men, and coming to the entryway of the grand sitting room. And there, in the middle of the room like a fucking king on his throne, sat a bored looking Vadim with a glass of vodka in his hand.
Just the sight alone was enough to make Pav want to kill the asshole. Vadim looked so smug—a grin tilting his lips upward as he offered his glass to Pav and Kolya like he was asking them for another drink.
“Boys,” Vadim greeted.
Kolya stiffened beside Pav. “Vadim, seems we have some business to handle here.”
“Do we?”
“Pav?” Kolya asked.
Pav’s gaze narrowed in on Vadim across the room. “You visited Boris often before your exile while he was in the chambers. Several visits, actually. And now he’s freed himself, has taken Viktoria hostage, and we have reason to believe it connects back to you.”
Vadim’s eyes widened. “Me, but why?”
Oh, he was going to kill this man, and he would enjoy it, too.
“Cut the shit,” Kolya uttered.
His father smirked. “I’m having fun—let me enjoy myself. I’ve waited a while for this.”
“You are—”
“Still very much five steps ahead of you and Konstantin, son,” Vadim countered easily. “As for Boris … well, I cannot help if I spoke to him during his time in the chambers, and that he took it a certain way. I never deliberately told the man to do anything. I never gave him orders, or anything of the sort. I certainly didn’t help him find his way out of there. I simply talked, and he may have learned from it, that was all.”
Vadim scrubbed his hand over his unshaven jaw and his gaze drifted to Pav when he added, “People often remember those who showed them mercy during their darkest hours. Isn’t that right, Zhatka?”
Pav said nothing.
But the man wasn’t wrong.
Unfortunately.
Kolya decided it was his turn to begin speaking again. “Where are the others who Konstantin put here to watch the house and you?”
Vadim lifted his glass up for a drink and winked. “Dead, of course.”
“Dead?”
“They were in the way, Kolya. I didn’t need very many to work. Just a couple that I could trust, and even then … I knew they would have to go in the end. I didn’t tell them that, you know. It wouldn’t have been good for this thing. But you took care of them.”
At that, Vadim glanced at the dead bodies just beyond the entryway. He smiled again.
Something was broken in this man.
Pav knew it.
Vadim chuckled as he set the glass down on the table beside his large, red leather chair. “Konstantin allowed too many of my loyalists to remain, hmm?”
Pav had every strong urge in the world to lift his gun so he could shoot Vadim right in the mouth to shut the man up, but he managed to hold it back. That probably wouldn’t do them any good right now.
Kolya eyed his father. “Your plan is pointless, and you know it. We’re here … we will get the information about Viktoria, and then where will that leave you?”
“Oh, will you?” Vadim scoffed, and glanced away from his son. “You must think I am stupid. After all these years, I assumed you might have learned something about me. Who is your brother going to ask to handle Boris, hmm? Can Konstanin really trust any man of ours back in Chicago to take care of business? How many of them do you think I have been able to turn to my side of things since he put me in exile? All those loyalists who remained … I didn’t have to do much, did I?”
“I—”
“It is a death sentence for Konstantin and the rest of them back in Chicago, Kolya,” Vadim continued, refusing to let his son get a word in edgewise. “The Boykov men cannot be trusted, and even if he does use one who can be, there are still many others waiting in the wings to step in when needed to put him down. He never should have turned against me. It was only a matter of time.”
Yeah, Pav had enough.
He dropped the gun, and in an instant, had two of his three knives in his hands as he crossed the room with steady, long strides. Vadim didn’t even have the chance to move or fight back before Pav had the tip of one knife digging into the man’s throat, and the other pressing into his gut. He put so much pressure on the blades that, already, a trickle of blood from the one at Vadim’s throat started to dribble down the blade. A small red stain began to appear on Vadim’s silk shirt from the other knife, too.
Pav didn’t lighten up, either.
“The one at your throat,” Pav said, “it will go in slowly, Vadim. You will feel every fucking inch of it as I cut your vocal cords and slit your esophagus in two. I will see what the inside of your throat looks like by the time I am done with you. You will choke on the blood—you will drown in it, and I will watch you do it.”
Vadim swallowed against the blade. “And the other knife?”
“Just for
