Chapter 16
Vlad
Being in Moscow reminds me far too much of my former life there. The life I never wanted to live. All the terror and anger of my youth, of my mother handing me over to Victor and his bratva, nearly drown me every time I’m in this city. Everything I hate about myself is here, too. This is where I first killed. Where I witnessed murder and beatings and learned to steal.
Where I decided that if I didn’t want to stay at the bottom of the ranks pushing drugs and p**********n, I needed a skill few had. So I learned how to hack. How to launder money. How to make myself infinitely useful to Victor and the other pakhans of Russia.
I liked the fantasy of my estate in Volgograd—the one I never lived in until now. Until Alessia and Mika. I liked pretending I might be something else
