GHOST (Boston Underworld Book 3)

by A. Zavarelli

  He doesn’t love me.

  “Alexei is a mate and an ally,” Lachlan informs me. “And he has been good to me. But you are Mack’s mate. And Mack is my wife. So I’m telling you now. This is your chance to get out of this situation if you want it. Probably the only chance you are ever going to get.”

  I nod, because I know he’s right. But I can’t stop crying. It’s freaking Mack out. Because I never cried before. But now, I’m a mess.

  Just as she always said I was. And I always tried to prove so hard that I wasn’t.

  I don’t care anymore. I don’t care if she thinks me weak. My heart is broken. Destroyed. And I have to make a life altering decision. One that will hurt us both, no matter what I decide. I don’t want Alexei to think I’m dead, but I know Lachlan is right. He won’t let me go any other way.

  This isn’t what I wanted.

  At all.

  But this is my reality. And I need to think of what’s best for me. For once in my life. And for the baby. Which deserves to have his father in his life. Alexei would be a good father.

  But if he knew, then that would mean sacrificing myself. The rest of my life living with a man who hates me.

  “I can’t win,” I tell them both. “No matter what I decide, I can’t win.”

  “Then you never should have married him,” Mack replies.

  I look up at her, and so does Lachlan. Her voice is cold. Angry. Bitter.

  “You should have come to me.”

  “You wouldn’t have understood,” I tell her. “And you can’t fix everything for me, Mack. You can’t fix me.”

  “Those are just the same old excuses, Tal. Complete bullshit.”

  “Mack,” Lachlan’s voice is warm and soft when he speaks with her. Filled with real love. It chokes me up even more. “Now is not the time.”

  “I know it’s not the frigging time,” Mack replies. “But Jesus, Talia. What the hell are you thinking right now? Of course you can’t go back there. Look at you. You’re a goddamn mess. For once in your life, think. Fucking think about this baby that you’re bringing into the world. About what’s best for him.”

  And I don’t know why, but I laugh. Because maybe this is what I need. My anger. Maybe Mack is doing me a favor by picking a fight with me right now.

  “So let me get this straight,” I reply. “You can marry into the mob, but I can’t? How does that work exactly?”

  “My husband isn’t an abusive asshole,” she states. “Look at you. Look at what he did to you. You can barely hold it together.”

  “You don’t know him,” I snap. “So why don’t you… for once in your life… quit judging everyone else around you, huh? I was like this long before Alexei ever came into my life. If anything, he put me back together.”

  I don’t mention that he broke me too. Because they can both see it. But Mack is determined to argue.

  “I’m not judging you, I’m stating a fact. You always assumed the worst of me, Tal. But all I’ve ever done was try to protect you.”

  “No, all you’ve ever done is try to get me to be exactly like you,” I yell at her. “To think like you. Act like you. Do as Mack would do with all her high morals and bullshit. You are such a fucking hypocrite.”

  She blinks at me, stunned, but I’m not finished. It’s time we got this out, once and for all.

  “You pride yourself on your loyalty to your friends, but you don’t even know them.”

  “I know you better than anyone,” she snaps.

  “No, you don’t. You refused to listen to me. When I tried to tell you the dark things about myself. You just didn’t want to accept them as a part of me. But that isn’t the way life works, Mack. You have to accept the bad in people too. Like Scarlett. Like me.”

  “What does Scarlett have to do with this?”

  “You don’t even know what she does!” I shout. “When she’s out at night.”

  “She sells her body,” she replies. “Everybody fucking knows it.”

  “Except she doesn’t.” I look at her and shake my head. “Not at all.”

  Mack is stunned, and Lachlan seems uncomfortable with this conversation, but keeps his mouth shut. I’ve always appreciated that about him. That he lets someone speak their piece. And that for once, someone isn’t looking at me like I’m completely crazy.

  “She’s a trick roller,” I tell Mack. “She doesn’t fuck men. She robs them. Because it gives her some of the power back that she lost. But you couldn’t ever understand that.”

  “I could…” Mack sputters, but the words die off.

  “No you couldn’t,” I tell her. “Because you aren’t like us, Mack. I’m sorry, but you’re not. You’re stronger. And you haven’t walked our path. But you judge us for it. You do.”

  “I don’t judge,” she whispers.

  And then tears spring to her eyes, and I feel guilty for saying it. But it needed to be said.

  “You do.”

  “Okay, maybe a little, but only because I want what’s best for my friends.”

  “But you can’t shame them into it, Mack. You can’t force people to change. To cope with everything the way that you do. People are different. They all deal with things differently. You need to understand that.”

  “It’s my fault, isn’t it?” Tears spill down her cheeks when she looks at me. “I pushed you into it. That trip with Dmitri. Because the last time I saw you… we argued.”

  “You didn’t push me into it.” I shake my head. “I would have gone regardless.”

  “But if I hadn’t been so pushy. So… judgy. And then I asked Alexei to save you.”

  “Mack.”

  I’m crying too, so it’s the only word I can get out. We both stand up and close the distance between us. Healing all of the hurt and anger with a single hug.

  I cry in her arms, and she holds me. And I don’t know how long we stand there like that, but I only know that a piece of my heart feels like it isn’t dead anymore. Like this is exactly where I need to be right now.

  It takes me over an hour to say the words. To accept what it is that I need to do.

  That I will need to hurt Alexei to protect myself.

  And that I will hate myself for it.

  But I don’t see any other choice.

  “I want to stay here,” I tell Lachlan with a shaky voice. “I’m going to stay here.”

  49

  Alexei

  “Viktor keeps calling,” Nikolai tells me from the passenger seat of the car.

  “Ignore it. I will deal with him later.”

  “I don’t think it’s about Arman,” he tells me.

  He keeps scrolling through his phone, checking through messages and missed calls. And when he tenses beside me, I know something is wrong.

  I pull over to the side of the road and give him my full attention. We are an hour from home. I just want to get back to the house. To figure out this mess. To ask Talia who sent her the photos again.

  I’m clinging to that, because it’s all I can do to continue down this path I have set out for myself. She has betrayed me. I could not have been so wrong about that. That is the only acceptable thing for me to believe.

  But then Nikolai turns to me, and his face is pale. Worried. He’s holding up his phone, and Viktor is already on the line, through a video chat.

  I’m not prepared for what he is about to say, so I delay the inevitable. My mind is turning, my hands clenched at my sides.

  “I will come to speak with you this evening,” I tell Viktor. “To explain my actions. And to retrieve Talia.”

  “Lyoshenka.”

  His face is full of emotion. Something that Viktor rarely ever shows. But it’s there now. And it’s triggering the emotion inside of me too. Something I do not like. Something I try to avoid at all costs.

  He isn’t angry. And he should be angry with me. He knows I have gone against his orders. Killing Arman was an unsanctioned act. He should be discussing his punishment with me. Instead, he is showing clear pi

ty for me.

  “What is it?”

  My stomach drops out and I die inside before I even read his words.

  “Talia is dead.”

  The basement floor is coated in blood.

  Corpses, stacked in the corner.

  My hands, itching for more.

  For all out war.

  But Viktor is beside me, talking of nonsense. Telling me to keep a rational head.

  “Those trucks were delivered from your house,” I remind him. “Someone has betrayed us.”

  “Yes,” he agrees. “But you have killed the men responsible for delivering them. Now we must wait. Be patient.”

  “I have no patience left,” is my reply. “My wife is dead. My unborn son, dead. Franco, dead. And you ask me for patience?”

  “We will right these wrongs,” he assures me. “In time. When we have discovered the traitor. There will be no mercy for him, Lyoshenka. None. But you must be patient.”

  “I have waited too long already,” I answer. “There isn’t even a body for me to bury…”

  The words die off, and I take a breath. I cannot think about that right now. Think about my Solnyshko that way. In my mind, she is still up on the third floor. Where I left her. Where she is beautiful and perfect and mine, even when I break her heart. When I destroy her as I always knew I would.

  There is only one way for me to go on. The only way that I know. And it’s written in blood.

  I turn to Nikolai, who is watching the conversation, but remains carefully quiet.

  “What of Dmitri’s men? The trainers?” I ask him.

  He does not look to Viktor for permission to speak. He simply nods. “I have their location.”

  I move towards the door, gesturing for him to follow. Viktor tries to halt me with a hand on my shoulder.

  “Lyoshenka, you must stop this.”

  “I will,” I assure him. “When I have killed them all.”

  A hand on my arm shakes me from my blackness, and when I blink up, Magda is there. My head is pounding, and I feel the urge to retch from the amount of liquor inside of my system.

  I want her to go away. I want everything to fucking go away.

  “Alyoshka,” she says. “You need to eat something. It has been two days.”

  No. It has been a month. A month since I died. Since everything just… stopped. I have spilled more blood in this time than in my entire career as a Vor. And I will continue to do so.

  To honor her memory in the only way I can.

  “Nikolai is here to see you,” Magda tells me.

  “Send him away.”

  “Too late.” He steps into view. “And I have something I believe you will want to see.”

  My eyes move to the disk in his hand. And it is the only thing that fires a spark inside of me. Vengeance. It is the only thing that keeps me living from one day to the next. The kill. The destruction. The war I have waged on the animals who touched her. Who ever even thought of hurting her.

  Magda leaves us to our privacy and I rouse the computer from its slumber, bringing up screen after screen on the wall. They are all filled with images of her. Of us.

  I have replayed that video of her last day a thousand times over. The walk down the stairs. The way she paused and cried and Magda comforted her for the pain I had inflicted.

  I never even said goodbye to her.

  I allowed my anger to consume me. To consume her too.

  She trusted me to protect her. And I did what I always said I wouldn’t. I failed her.

  I close my eyes and feel Nikolai’s hand on my shoulder. I am too weak to turn him away, even if I should. He has been here often, in the days since. Checking on me.

  But there is nothing new to report.

  Life goes on. The Vory business goes on. Only I cannot go on.

  I feel her numbness now. Her pain. It haunts me in her stead. My Solnyshko. The sun has gone from my life, and only darkness remains.

  I am crying, I realize.

  I don’t even attempt to hide it from Nikolai. He doesn’t say anything. He just takes over, bringing up the video on the screen. The same video I have also looked at a thousand times over. From that day at the meeting.

  The day when all of this began.

  “I had Mischa take a look at it,” Nikolai tells me.

  And then he brings the cursor to a time stamp on the screen and clicks it. I watch as he slows down the video, and only then do I see it.

  And I cannot believe I didn’t see it before.

  That my anger had blinded me so badly from the truth.

  “It’s on a time loop,” Nikolai answers my thoughts. “Whoever it was knew what they were doing. And they were fast. They came prepared.”

  “How long?” I ask.

  “Thirty seconds, maximum. You couldn’t have noticed it, Lyoshka. It was very well edited.”

  My body falls back against my chair as all of my worst fears are confirmed. Talia had nothing to do with the video. But someone wanted it to appear that way. Someone close to me. Who knew I would not trust her. Or believe her.

  Someone who wanted to rip us apart.

  “There is something else,” Nikolai tells me as he takes a seat across from me.

  “What is it?”

  “Katya’s guard mentioned that she visited a security store a few months back. He didn’t know what she purchased, but found the trip to be out of character for her.”

  “Then we need to talk to her.” I rise to my feet, even though I am still too drunk to make it down the stairs.

  “I already tried.” Nikolai shakes his head. “But she was found dead this morning, Lyoshka. Hanging from the rafter in her ceiling.”

  I blink at him as I process his words. Katya is dead. And someone is trying to cover their tracks. Talia told me. She told me she didn’t think it was over. And she was right. I didn’t listen to her. I didn’t listen to Nikolai.

  “She wasn’t working alone,” Nikolai says. “Someone is cleaning up loose ends. Katya is not smart enough to set up that slide show and she was not in the building that day. I believe it is one of the Vory.”

  I look at him from across my desk, and the name that has haunted me all my life is the only one that comes to mind. Nikolai knows what I am thinking before I even say it. His face is drawn, and I know he believes it to be true as well.

  “Sergei.”

  50

  Alexei

  The Vory has our own enforcers. Our own hitmen.

  But none as skilled in the art of human suffering as the Irish Reaper. Ronan Fitzpatrick.

  He is in my basement now, with Sergei.

  While Viktor, Nikolai, and I watch from the camera in my office. I am feeling restless. Eager. It is all I can do to remain seated and have patience. But it is better this way. Because I have no control left. I would kill him in the first two minutes, and that would not do.

  “You will end him,” Viktor assures me. “That is your right to do so, Lyoshenka. But you must be patient.”

  I expected a fight from Nikolai. But I did not get one. Instead, he sits beside me. Watching as carefully as I. In my mind, I wonder if he has hope. Hope that we are wrong, and that our father did not do this. That he will somehow live.

  But that is not the case.

  It is evident when he finally breaks. Ronan has made him suffer past the point of all reason and strength. His mind can no longer withstand the pain.

  “It was me.”

  Those three little words burst from his mouth and ignite the darkness that has always burned inside of me. Because of him. For him.

  This man who refused to acknowledge me as a son.

  My own father murdered my wife and unborn child in cold blood. Exposed me to the other Vory as weak. And destroyed my life.

  Both Viktor and Nikolai are waiting for me to get up. To rush downstairs and finish the job. But I am frozen by my grief all over again.

  “Perhaps we should do it together,” Nikolai offers. “It would hurt him more if I were to help.”

  His words are true enough. Something that would have felt bitter to me before is now just an honest truth that I can no longer deny.

  Sergei only ever had love for Nikolai. Everyone else in his life was disposable. Myself. My mother. Even his mistresses. Nikolai’s mother disappeared years ago, and nobody knows what happened to her.

  To have the only thing he ever valued participate in his destruction would be difficult for Sergei. I believed that I would never trust Nikolai again. That he could never make amends for what he did to me.

  But as I rise up and he walks by my side to kill our father, I am grateful for his presence.

  The basement is cold, with a persistent stench of copper and Sergei’s sweat.

  When his sons enter the room and meet his gaze, there is a flash of betrayal as I had hoped.

  But it is not for me. His eyes linger on Nikolai, assessing his intentions.

  Sergei has lived by the Vory codes for most of his life. He already knows death will come. There is no doubt he accepts that as fact. But he believes that because he is a Vor, he will receive an honorable death.

  He is wrong.

  Already, his toenails and fingers have been removed. He has been water boarded repeatedly by Ronan Fitzpatrick and brought back to life several times already with shock paddles. His eyes are cloudy and his pulse is no doubt weak.

  But it isn’t over. Not even close.

  “Talia’s death was quick,” I tell him when I step forward. “But I can assure you that yours won’t be.”

  I make a gesture to Ronan and he hands over the small black case. My fingers itch to open it. To touch the thing that will cause him pain unlike he’s ever known.

  But instead, I hand it to my brother.

  “You can do the honors,” I tell Nikolai.

  It is difficult to relinquish this moment. But I know that Nikolai is right. This is what will hurt Sergei the most. His face is solemn but not repentant as he retrieves the syringe from the case. And under Ronan’s guidance, he injects the special blend of snake venom into Sergei’s arm.

  It only takes a few moments for the effects to kick in.

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