Broken Sins (Volkov Bratva #3)

When he looked up and saw his daughter talking to me, he blanched. “Audrey!” he called at once. His eyes shifted to me. “Please forgive me, sir, I didn’t intend to disrupt your evening. Audrey, come here!” He sounded panicked, like all of the other servants and workmen who encountered any member of my family around the grounds. They didn’t like to talk to us anymore than they had to.

Audrey lingered in front of me for a moment. Our eyes were riveted on each other’s. Something passed between us, like an electric current running along a wire. I would have recoiled, were it not for the training that kept me rooted in place resolutely. “Stand your ground. Show no fear.” One of Antoni’s lessons.

Then her father said her name again. She swished her long, dark hair over her shoulder, turned, and followed him away. She didn’t look back for as long as I could see her, though part of me hoped she would, if only so I could see her eyes again.

The two of them rounded a corner and were gone. The courtyard was silent once again. The pool water still puddled at my feet, growing colder by the second.

I said her name out loud. “Audrey.” I liked how it sounded coming from my lips. “Audrey,” I said again. “Her name is Audrey.”

* * *

I claw my way back to the present. Glancing around, I’m suddenly unsure of how much time has passed since I started indulging myself with memories that would be better off forgotten. No one has moved or spoken since Mateo. But no one seems to have noticed me disappearing into my own head, either. That is for the best. If any of my brothers knew the kinds of things that occupy me in the middle of sleepless nights, they would not even know where to begin.

“So,” I say, clearing my throat. “The girl.”

“What about her?” Leo answers lazily.

“We need to plan our next steps carefully.”

“Just poke her with something sharp until she squeals,” Dante suggests, stabbing his knife in the air a few times.

I wince. “Do you want to start a war?”

“What Iwantto do,fratello, is castrate a few Russians. What I’ll settle for is making their princess bleed.” He shrugs. “Or maybe just fuck her until I’ve had my fill.”

“No,” I answer swiftly and firmly. “What I said stands. We don’t touch her. Especially not you.”

“Afraid she’ll fall for me?” Dante taunts me. He grinds his hips and thrusts into the air like he’s making love to the fireplace. Laughing, he slumps back down and waves a hand carelessly in the air. “That’s more Leo’s style, not mine.”

“True enough,” Leo answers with a wry grin. “Perhaps that’s the way then? I’ll just bed her until she sings like a bird.”

“No,” I say again. I can feel myself losing my grip on the conversation. Getting my brothers in line is like herding cats. It always has been that way, and nothing has changed now that I am the acting don. They are willful, impetuous, impossible to rein in. Even now, I can see Leo’s expression turning wistful as he no doubt pictures stripping Milaya bare and taking her into his toy room like she is just another of his whores.

“It could be the simplest solution,” Leo argues suddenly. “If she is putty in my hands, then we can mold her into anything we like. An ally, even.”

“That’s not—”

“An ally is a good thing, yes,” interrupts Mateo. “But I hardly think your cock is going to brainwash her into cooperating with her family’s enemies. We have to persuade her to join us voluntarily.”

Dante rolls his eyes. “Why do you always prefer a mind fuck over the real thing, you nerdy bastard?”

“There is more to life than the pleasures of the skin, brother.”

“Spoken like someone who’s never been laid.”

Leo chokes out a harsh laugh as Mateo and Dante continue to bicker. I tune them all out.

It is clear that each of us is playing exactly to character. Leo wants to seduce her into cooperating, Dante wants to threaten her into it, Mateo wants to convince her, and I want to leave her out of it entirely. If I had my way, she’d stay chained the basement and serve as bait, a bargaining chip, nothing more than that. No need to involve her at all. That would be best for everyone, I think. Certainly it would be best for me. I can hardly stomach the thought of looking her in the face again. I want to do it as little as possible.

So, if I were truly don, it would be simple: issue the order and watch it become reality. But the fact is that I am not the dictatorial mafioso leader my father was. My brothers will not be cast to the wayside so easily. Leo could be tempted into other distractions; Dante could be set loose on a minor enemy while I figure out what to do with the Volkov situation. But Mateo is stubborn.

I wish Sergio were here. He was truly the best of each of us. My fist tightens on the arm of the chair in which I’m seated. Again, I picture him jumping out of the car—the bullets splicing through the air—the burst of red blood. My skin grows clammy, my gaze distant.

This was Father’s fault. And it was my fault for not properly dissuading him.

I as good as killed them both.

“Fuck,” I growl under my breath. No one notices me, too lost in their own arguing. The only thing to do is put one foot in front of the next.If you stop, you die.Those words are ingrained into me like they were carved on the walls of my heart. I cannot stop to mourn or wish for what might have been. All we have is the here and now. All we can do is the next best thing.