Page 5

He was already dead. How much worse would it get if he'd have told the council what his own fucking son had done? Ivan is being remembered as some hero and not the monster he was. My only shame is that when I handed over the ring, I also gave away my right to speak openly to the council about anything ever again.

Alexei lured me here to "work out our differences", and I'm sure it was our father's idea. As if beating each other bloody in a ring will somehow make me accept that my brother is marrying into the family that killed Ivan.

Alexei wipes his mouth with the back of his glove and scowls at me, spitting at my feet. "Look, you know what happened could never see the light of day. Ivan just⁠—"

"Don't," I spit, bouncing on my toes. I'm ready to bust his face in just for trying to defend Ivan. "Don't say his name like he was some saint who died young. Don't pretend what he did was some minor indiscretion."

"I'm not pretending anything." Alexei drops his hands, looking exhausted. He spits out his mouth guard and mops more sweat from his forehead. Thirty years old and he already has lines around his eyes that make him look old. This life does that to you, aging you in dog years, betrayal carving grooves into your face. "I'm saying that some things are better left buried. That girl⁠—"

"That girl was someone's daughter. someone's sister." I tear off my gloves in a huff, throwing them onto the mat, then spit out my own mouth guard. "And Father lied to the Council about it. He completely covered it up, Lex. How can you live with that?"

Alexei's laugh is bitter and hollow. "Well, look at you being all principled. Brother, we murder people and cover it up." He shakes his head and scoffs at me, then drags a sweaty hand down his fore head and shakes the moisture from it.

"You just don't fucking get it, do you? The people we kill have it coming." I don't know how many ways I have to explain this before he gets the point. "And murder is the worst thing they have to go through." Shaking my head, I stalk closer. "He literally raped a woman and the Volskaya Pakhan shot him. She has to live with that the rest of her life. She doesn't get the pleasure of death to end the trauma she's living in."

My brother swallows hard and kicks his glove out of the ring, then turns back to face me. "Maybe you're just jealous I'm the one making this deal. Huh? Is that it? You aren't getting the glory for finally settling this decade-long dispute?"

What a fucking idiot! I could seriously hurt him. "I think you don't even have the balls to ask why they're so eager to cover this up and what else might be lurking in the darkness if they do."

Something flashes in his eyes, doubt or anger that I'm not falling in line. "Because they want peace, Dimitri. Unlike you, some of us understand that blood costs money, and there's been enough spilled."

He shoves me and walks toward the ropes as I stumble backward a few steps.

"Peace?" I spit. "You think Nikolai Volskaya wants peace? You think that man ever wants anything but more power and territory?" I step closer and see his pulse jumping in his throat. "He's buying your loyalty with his daughter because he knows something we don't. Or because he's hiding something we shouldn't."

"You're paranoid."

"I'm paying attention," I growl, turning away, unable to look at him anymore. The mirrors show me my own hollow-cheeked face with dark circles under my eyes. I look like a ghost of myself. "There's a reason they're rushing it through."

Alexei climbs through the ropes in a huff and snatches his gloves off the concrete. "You need to let this go for your own good. Father won't tolerate your stirring up trouble when everything is finally falling into place."

"Falling into place?" I follow him, but I trail behind a few paces. If I get closer, I'm gonna smack him. "Keep telling yourself whatever helps you sleep at night, but when I find the truth, don't expect me to keep it a secret like they did."

He slams the locker room door open and tosses his gloves on the floor by his locker before reaching into it to grab his towel. We're brothers, so there has always been a measure of sibling rivalry between us. But ever since I stepped back and was forced to give up my right to my father's throne, Alexei has been insufferable.

"I don't want anything to happen to you. But if you keep pushing this."

"You'll what? Stand aside while Father puts a bullet in my head?" I laugh and shake my head. "You're already standing aside while he sells your soul. What's one more betrayal?"

"Fuck you," he growls and turns away, slinking off to the showers.

I turn, tearing my gloves the rest of the way off, then shredding the tape from my wrists and knuckles.

This whole situation erupted in the past four months because for whatever reason, my father feels the pressure to end this feuding between our family and the Volskayas. Every time things settle down, someone gets in another scuffle over turf and things erupt again. I admit, I've seen the nastier side of this, probably more times than my father or brother have because I’m out on those streets daily. But I've also heard the rumbles of dissent in the family.

No one wants this marriage.

When I reach up and open my locker door, expecting to take out my towel so I can go shower, a large manilla envelope falls out at my feet. It's sealed, and it has my name written in neat handwriting on the outside, and I glance around at the empty locker room wondering how it got there. No one was even in this building tonight, or at least, I didn't see anyone.

I stoop to pick it up as I look in the direction of the showers where I hear the sound of water being turned on. The envelope is light, like it's empty or holding barely nothing, and when I tear it open and reach inside, it holds two images. Both of my late older brother, Ivan.

The shocking part is, there's a woman with him, a woman I've seen many times before at council meetings. Alana Volskaya walks on Ivan's arm carrying a drink of some kind, looking past drunk. Ivan is escorting her out of the ballroom where the Christmas gala was hosted in one of the images, and in another, they're alone in a dark hallway.

The pictures are from the night he was killed.

And he was with Alana.

My knees go weak, and I sink onto the bench behind me and stare at the photograph. If Ivan was with Alana, it makes perfect sense why she was upset at that meeting three weeks ago. Someone knows my father's secret and they're trying to clue me in by sending these images, someone who doesn't want this alliance to form any more than I do.