Heart of My Monster (Monster Trilogy #3) by Rina Kent

“I thought we were meeting alone?” he asks when he’s in front of us and motions at Viktor with his chin.

“You have no place to set down rules, motherfucker,” my senior guard says in his usual blunt way.

“You know how he thinks we were born attached at the hip.” My tone is welcoming and less intense than Viktor’s.

Makar manages to relax a little, even though his gaze keeps shifting sideways.

“Care to tell me where you’ve been?” I ask in the same friendly tone.

“Around.” He releases a breath. “I was never supposed to come in contact with you again.”

“What made you change your mind?”

“I found out that the person I worked with is planning to take you out, and that was never part of the plan. I couldn’t just sit back and watch. Your father told me to help you get to the top, not get rid of you.”

Viktor steps forward. “You have the goddamn audacity to stand there and admit that you colluded with someone else against your own boss?”

“I didn’t have a choice! My family was threatened.”

“You could’ve come to me for that, and I would’ve made sure they were safe.” I grab Viktor by the shoulder and pull him back. “But there was another reason, wasn’t there?”

Makar scratches the side of his bald head. “I thought Sasha was taking away your concentration from what’s important. Besides, she’s the daughter of your father’s enemies.”

“So you decided the best way to take care of that was to kill her.” My affirmation is calm, so calm that he swallows.

“I was only asked for assistance.”

“By whom?”

“Konstantin.”

My body goes rigid, and a ringing sounds in my ear. Even Viktor’s brow furrows as if he can’t believe what he’s hearing.

Have I been too mellow and too negligent with my brother? How can I possibly ignore that he could’ve participated in this mission?

It makes sense from what the Albanian guy said about meeting secretly and how his ally wanted to hurt me as much as possible.

Was everything he’s done in the past few months excellent acting? Or have I slept on the fact that he could be a better manipulator than me?

He said the right words. Displayed the right emotions. He stood by my side like when we were kids and looked up to me as a brother.

“Proof,” I say with enough tension to make Makar stand upright.

He shows me texts he exchanged with my brother about the plan and some photos of them together.

Logically, that shouldn’t be enough evidence since they can be faked, but my mind is veering in the exact opposite direction.

This is the detail that I’ve been missing during my search for Sasha’s killer—or the one who attempted the blasphemy.

Ever since my wife told me she’d left a fake behind, and I realized the DNA results had been manipulated, I knew the perpetrator was close.

I just didn’t know how close.

I was willing to suspect my guards, but I never really suspected Konstantin. Especially since I’d started to see glimpses of the old him after his wedding.

Maybe all of that was a façade, too.

He must’ve enjoyed seeing me crumble and lose control during the two months I thought Sasha was dead.

He must’ve been laughing on the inside while offering his support.

“You said he was planning to take me out.” I glare at Makar. “How?”

“I don’t know, but he thinks you’re not fit to be Pakhan and that he should be the one to take your position instead. You have to believe me, Boss. I would never help him with that. Your father didn’t want him to ever become the leader of the family and I agree.”

“Did Roman already know that Konstantin wasn’t his son?”

Makar’s lips part, but he nods. “He put all his effort into finding the man Yulia cheated with. He became friends with him, too, since the bastard didn’t even know he was her husband. When the time came, he eliminated him.”

The pieces of the puzzle start to fall together. “Was he perhaps part of the Belsky Organization?”

Makar nods again.

“Which one?”

“Anatoly Ivanov.”

Sasha’s uncle. Thank fuck it wasn’t her father, or else the situation would get too complicated too fast.

She’s still cousins with my fucker of a brother, though.

“How did Roman find out?”

“Yulia goes to Russia’s countryside every summer. The first time she went was a year after you were born. But then she started going religiously. In the beginning, we all assumed it was a holiday. But Roman found out that she used that time to meet with a certain man. Apparently, they had an affair that lasted for years, but they only met during the summer in some nameless Russian town, away from everyone they knew. After that time was over, she’d come back to New York and he’d go back to his family.”

“So Roman decided to annihilate him and his entire family.”

“He only thought about toying with him and then killing him in front of her, but then he was approached by the Russian government to infiltrate and eliminate the threat that the Belsky Organization posed, so he immediately agreed. In their last days, Yulia could’ve found out about Roman’s involvement and might have tried to warn Anatoly, but it was probably too late.”