Red Alpha: A BWWM Russian Alpha Billionaire Romance (18 page)

Disappointment hurt.

Demyan remembered how firm Veta’s grip was on him the day their parents died. How she hadn’t shed a single tear. How year after year she had hardened until he wasn’t sure if any part of the sister he’d known remained.

His fingers closed on the Glock that he kept concealed under his desk.

His shot was clean – through the wooden surface of the old antique and directly upwards through her heart.

When she choked, Demyan’s heart stopped.

The knife she held slid off the side of his neck to clatter to the surface of the desk, useless, and the blonde woman’s body slumped downward.

Straightening quickly, Demyan caught her by the shoulders, gently drawing her over what remained of the flat surface to look down at her. Blood soaked through the material of her shirt as she looked up at him incredulously. When she opened her mouth to try and speak, crimson stained her lips, and she blinked with a cough.

“Veta.” When he spoke, she reached up to clutch his shoulder tightly, and Demyan felt his heart contract as hers beat its last. “Veta, I’m sorry,” he whispered gently.

With a single gasp, his sister – the only family he had left in the world – expired, the light fading from her eyes.

For a long moment, Demyan stared down at her. After so long, the angry crease in her brow had faded and her mouth was soft, her tension eased.

She rested.

“Dear Sweet Jesus.”

He looked up to see none other than Cadence standing in the doorway, a hand covering her mouth at the sight that greeted her. “Demyan…” She hesitated, her gaze travelling from the dead woman on his desk to him and back. “What…what happened?”

He couldn’t. Not now.

Reaching up, he disengaged Veta’s fingers from his sleeve, placing her hand over her bloodied chest before coming out from around his desk. His gaze was hard as he approached the woman before him, his resolve strong.

Even if he felt empty inside.

“We have to go.” He ordered curtly, taking her arm to tug her from the room and close the door behind him. “Now.”

Their time was up.
His
time was up.

**

Cadence thought it might be harder, but the most difficult part of their escape so far was the verbal dressing down Cresseda had given her. When she called her supervisor to tell her what she had planned, the woman had flown into a rage. She
would not
, she insisted, allow a new agent to drag a Russian national back onto American soil for political asylum, and
certainly
not Demyan Boykov. She softened little when Cadence told her about the black book, demanding that the woman shoot Demyan in the head and bring the damned book anyway.

Of course, the nuclear codes changed everything.

Like Cadence, Cresseda was skeptical. But she also realized that Boykov wouldn’t be giving up his name and position in Russia if it weren’t for something pretty fucking important, and so, reluctantly, she gave Cadence her leave to bring him back to the US via the quickest route possible.

Of course, Cadence knew that she would probably have to face some pretty heavy consequences for turning her intel and reconnaissance assignment to a fucking extraction, but she was willing to work with that. Especially for the purpose of preventing possible nuclear holocaust. She had to trust Demyan as much as Cresseda, and despite any physical attachment she might have to the man, she was just as ready to lock him up for probable lies.

Except…the further they traveled from Moscow, the more convinced Cadence became that the man wasn’t lying.

Somehow, they made it to the train station and boarded, taking a private cabin under pseudonyms that would have been humorous if the situation wasn’t so dire. Atop that, Demyan’s was all but useless, at least while they were in Russia, as every Russian citizen knew his goddamned name.

Cadence might have pointed this out…but it was clear that the man was struggling with the gravity of the situation they had entered into.

And, of course, killing his own sister.

Cadence replayed the moment she’d walked into his study over and over in her mind – Demyan standing over Veta’s twitching form as the light faded from her eyes, clutching a Glock in his hand. The man hadn’t looked triumphant and he certainly hadn’t looked happy. He looked as if someone had ripped his soul out through his mouth and torn it apart, piece by piece. In the training Cadence had received for intelligence, she had seen a world of messed up events. Children killed for milligrams of gold, people displaced from life-giving water for the greed of officials, the elderly pushed to the brink of death to keep homes that supposedly belonged to them…but she didn’t think she’d ever seen anything like the pain in Demyan’s eyes as he watched he sister die.

He hadn’t said a word to her since they left the manor, and as the Russian landscape stretched out beyond, he stared out the window with eyes that saw relatively little.

The man was haunted, and the young woman found herself searching for a way to soothe him. It wasn’t her place, she knew. Just because she’d been in Demyan’s bed didn’t give her the right to interfere with his personal life…but the sight of him suffering…it was almost more than she could bear.

“Demyan…” After about three hours of silence, she spoke softly from her place across from him, nestled in her coat. The train was warm enough, but a cold pervaded their compartment that she hoped she could, somehow, banish. “I’m…sorry about your sister.”

He didn’t answer her. He didn’t even look at her.

After a long moment, the young woman decided to take a chance. Leaving her coat on the opposite seat, she crossed their small compartment to take a seat next to Demyan. She hesitated only briefly before placing a hand on his solid thigh to squeeze the solid muscle there. “There was nothing you could have done.”

She felt him tense beneath her fingers as another stretch of quiet passed between them. When the Russian man finally opened his mouth, his statement made her blood run cold. “They killed our parents.”

Cadence’s eyes widened slightly, her heart twisting in her chest. “…what did you say?”

Demyan didn’t miss a beat. “Our parents. Ivan Danshov had them killed.”

The young woman exhaled a long, shuddering breath. She wasn’t sure whether she should remain quiet or not, but in the interest of shedding some light on the somewhat cloudy history of the Boykov family – as well as helping Demyan seek some sort of emotional comfort – she dared to ask a question. “
Why?
”

“They were progressive in an age of communism.” He replied in a monotonous tone. “They used to talk to us about wanting to move to America so they could experience democracy – how much harm the communist system was doing to the common people. Of course, as earlier Danshov generations helped them to earn their fortune, they were beholden to them. But I suppose they never dreamed that their own daughter would be the one to tell Danshov of their indiscretions.”

Cadence inhaled sharply in horror.
Veta
? Veta had snitched on her own parents? She couldn’t have been more than ten or eleven years old.

“I don’t believe she knew what she was doing. She attended an exclusive private school where Danshov and those close with him had high influence. She always wanted to do what’s right for her country. She never wanted to go to America. She cried at the thought of leaving her friends and our home.”

“So she…told?”

Demyan nodded bitterly, his eyes still on the rolling, snow-covered landscape. “Several soldiers came to our house. They interrogated our parents until they admitted their plans. They wanted to visit the US on the premise of vacationing and then seek political asylum…but they were shot. In our living room, while Veta and I watched.”

“Jesus Christ.” Cadence’s stomach churned as she ran a shaking hand through her hair. “But they spared you?”

“Of course. We still had the Boykov name. There was no way the state could seize such a huge estate without appearing immediately suspect. They did seize us, however. The plan was to re-educate us…to make us see that our parents had merely been misled. Some story or the other was released to the press that they were actually martyrs who had died keeping secrets from the American government.

Ivan might have treated us like family to our faces, but he was always watching us. Waiting for us to make our parents mistakes. Of course, Veta was under less suspicion than I. She had already been heavily influenced by Ivan. So much so that she thought he wouldn’t hurt me if she only asked.”

Demyan’s thigh trembled briefly beneath her hand and Cadence swallowed thickly. “Ultimately, it was her he hurt. Brainwashed…
Blyad
, I don’t know. She changed…and I changed too. I realized how foolish it would be to meet the same end as my parents when I had the chance to carry on their legacy. So I did the smart thing and I shut my mouth. Luckily enough for me, before Ivan could decide that I was very much of a nuisance, he was killed. Osip was stupider. Easier to bear.” The Russian man frowned deeply. “Even so, it took
years
….years with Veta hovering in place of Ivan, years of enduring his calling me brother and knowing what he did to my parents…of knowing what could happen to me the moment I defied him. But, gradually, I gained his trust. I was allowed my family inheritance. I killed for him. I stole and tortured…and every time I did, I wondered how long it would take before I obtained what I needed.

“When he began asking for my money to send to arms dealers, I was thirty three. When he started buying into plutonium, he relied heavily on my investments. And always, he was surrounded by people he knew could turn on him. Osip’s paranoia shot through the roof when Ivan was killed, and so, it was easy for me to exploit.

“I convinced him to entrust the codes to me, in part, because of Veta. She always belonged to the Danshovs, and if there was one thing Osip never believed I’d do, it was kill my own sister. She was his insurance policy. If ever I should refuse the codes, she would capture me, and Lichakov would torture them from me.”

“But…you
did
kill her.” Cadence finally whispered, horrified.

“Yes.” Demyan replied, barely above the movement of the train. “I did.”

“Dear
God
, Demyan…”

What the hell was she supposed to say? She thought
she’d
had it bad, losing a sister and working her ass off for an opportunity to find out what happened to her. Demyan lost both his parents and had to murder his sister to earn his salvation…and not even that was assured. As soon as Danshov discovered Veta’s body, no doubt he’d hunt them until the moment they reached US soil.

He was willing to risk
everything
, just to get his revenge against the Danshov family. A life of watching and waiting…his entire family…

“You should sleep.” The Russian man rose abruptly and her hand slid from his lap as he moved past her. “We’ll arrive in Minsk soon.” With that, he quietly slid the door to the compartment open and slipped from it, leaving her alone in the semi-darkness.

All Cadence could do was stare after him.

This, she realized, was what Alessia had fought to prevent. Suffering like this…
No
one deserved to suffer like this.

Roksana couldn’t remember the last time she’d been so excited.

She stood in the doorway of Demyan’s office, which was currently swarming with police, the Yenotov brothers, body guards, and Osip himself, grinning like an utter fool.

She had been waiting for something like this to happen.

Ever since the American had set foot on Russian soil with her ingratiating, superior, sand-rat idiocy, she had been waiting for her to mess up. Somehow, she’d known that she would do something stupid. They always did. Of course, it had helped that Veta felt much the same way about the American that she did.

Poor Veta, whose brother had chosen a piece of American trash over his own sister.

In all fairness, Elisaveta had it coming for a long time. She was a vicious, angry cunt that allowed herself to be brainwashed by a man three times her age. The man told her to watch her brother while he was alive and for decades after, she was still following his orders as if he might pop up any goddamn moment.

Hadn’t she noticed that little Demyan had grown up?

Over the years he’d changed from a sniveling, obedient little dog to a man with a mind and muscle. In hand to hand combat, Roksana was sure he would have taken his sister’s head off if he needed to.

Even if Osip hadn’t agreed.

Now, the great Minister stood over Veta’s body, his expression one of disgust and anger. Her favorite knife lay, useless, beyond her reach, on the remains of Demyan’s desk. It looked like he had shot her through it. The poor dear hadn’t even seen it coming.

Much like their Prime Minister.

A string of curses flew from Osip’s lips, his face growing ruddy and red. For her part, Lichakov had always suspected that Demyan had something like this up his sleeve. In fact, she had counseled against Osip giving him and him alone the nuclear codes, only relenting when he promised that the man’s betrayal meant that she could have him any way she saw fit.

And she planned on having Demyan in
several
different ways.

“Where is he?” When the Prime Minister finally spoke, his voice was taut with rage.

“Prague.” Lichakov responded almost gleefully. She was itching to get Demyan back and into her secret set of rooms below the Kremlin. “They’re on their way to England. I suspect that the American plans to get them back to the United States from there.”

Her lover’s mouth pulled into a tight line. “Bring them back to me, Roksana.” His eyes gleamed with malevolent intent. “I don’t care what you do to the American. Make it look like an accident. But I need those codes.”

“Of course, my love.” She kissed his cheek with genuine affection. She always loved Osip most when he let her run free to terrorize. “I’ll bring Demyan home where he belongs.”

She almost felt sorry for the man. All that power and he took the betrayal of one man personally? If she were in his place, Roksana would have killed Demyan long ago. He was far too…
liberal
for her tastes.