Clipping Thorns (Withered Rose Book 2), page 16
“I know…” I say quietly. “That’s why it’s best you stay here.”
“So I don’t have to watch Volkov kill him!” he shouts. “Why are you even going if his life has already been decided?”
I take a breath. “To retrieve his body.”
Nineteen
For the first time in years, I sit in the driver’s seat and take the steering wheel for myself. I don’t remember the last time I drove anywhere, but I refused to let Douglass or Conrad drive me. Conny is too emotional right now and even though I told everyone Volkov wouldn’t hurt me, the truth is that I’m not so sure. He could kill me. And if it comes to that, I’d rather it happens alone so no one else is caught in the crossfire.
This whole thing is my failure. I should have listened to Vater and Onkel. I should have double checked to make sure no one else joined the mission at the last minute without my consent. Now I may have to take my own cousin’s body back home—if Volkov even allows me to return home.
Again, I find myself grasping desperate strands of hope as I mutter a prayer under my breath. “God … help me.”
I won’t allow myself to believe anyone is listening—even though I’ve been faced with undeniable proof that there is, that He is. It’s too much to think about right now, so I whisper the words in a shaky voice and then I punch the radio on, so I won’t be left in silence to hear that strange Voice again.
When I pull onto Volkov’s property, I’m not surprised to find no guards or security or gates. He’s so confident I won’t show up guns blazing, it pisses me off, but not any more than the fact that he’s right. I’ve shown up with my tail tucked and my balls clipped.
I reach into the glovebox and grab my gun, and just to show Volkov he’s not entirely in control here, I don’t bother hiding the weapon as I storm up to the front doors. With a shove, they part to let me in. My footsteps echo through the hall as I walk through the mansion like I own the place, gun gripped so tightly, my knuckles are raw and red.
There is a set of double doors at the end of the main corridor, they’re left wide open, and I can hear voices coming from inside. As I approach, I make out Volkov’s familiar tenor. The sound of it gives me the anger I need to march right inside without hesitation.
Volkov is sitting behind a large desk, a laptop in front of him, with three men crowded around him. They’re dressed in all black suits, but there is nothing gentlemanly about them. Ugly scars mar their faces, intricately designed tattoos mark their hands, arms, and even their necks. The massive creature standing right beside Volkov is totally bald, but his head and face is covered in a coat of ink. Black lines decorate his skin to make him look like a walking skeleton. The sight of it almost throws me off, but I keep my resolve and walk right up to Volkov’s desk, gun in hand.
He glances up. “You came.” He nods at the weapon in my hand and then looks at the bald skeleton man. “Yuri, you owe me a thousand dollars.”
I squint as the big man chuckles. As if to explain, Volkov says, “We made a bet—two, actually—if you would come alone and if you would come armed.”
“This is not a game,” I growl, leaning over his desk.
His smile withers as he stands. Mikhail is a tall man, but he’s thin and willowy and older than Vater. I’m not afraid of him physically, but it’s his unassuming nature that makes him so dangerous. What he lacks in his form, he more than makes up for in his mentality. They call the Volkovs ‘Wolves’ but ‘Vipers’ is a more fitting term, in my opinion. Like a snake, he attacks at random. The bite itself is never too painful—it’s the venom that takes you down. Because you never feel it right away. Not until it’s too late.
“No, Jäger, this is not a game,” Volkov says darkly. His Russian accent is so thick, I have to concentrate when he speaks, but I understand him perfectly when he turns to Yuri and orders, “Bring in the boy.”
Boy. Morgen is twenty-four years old. Engaged. And on his way to becoming a General in the German mafia. He isn’t a boy at all. But as Yuri steps away and returns with the whittled frame that is my cousin, I can’t see him as anything but a child.
He is bloody and bruised, but it isn’t his injuries that reduce him to that of a boy. It’s the wild look of fear in his eyes. It’s the way his face is creased with worry that turns to relief when he sees me standing there. I am his rescuer right now. He knows I’ve come to help him … that’s why it tears my very soul apart when I see Volkov take out his gun and aim it at him.
I immediately point my gun at Yuri which makes the other two Russians in the room lift their guns toward me. Volkov just smirks.
“Calm down, Jäger,” he orders.
“No.”
“You knew this would happen when you first saw the message.”
He’s right, but I don’t have to admit that.
“You haven’t made an offer,” I say hoarsely. “Let’s talk, Volkov.”
“What is the point? We both know you will refuse my offer.”
Morgen squirms and cries against the fabric stuffed into his mouth. Yuri responds by yanking his head back by his hair and kicking in the back of his knee. He buckles and drops to the floor with a groan, glaring over his shoulder at the massive Russian.
“Call off your men,” I order gruffly.
“No.”
“Volkov!” His name comes out like a curse, my voice filled with rage. I cock my gun to show him I’m serious—so do the other two Russians.
Volkov’s lupine grin flattens into a more serious expression. To my surprise, he lowers his gun—even sets it on the desk as he walks around to the front and rests his butt on the edge.
“All right, Jäger,” he says smugly, “let us talk. Like gentlemen.”
“Call them off,” I repeat.
He lazily waves his hand, and they follow the order right away. Morgen heaves a sigh behind his gag as Yuri takes a small step back. He isn’t safe yet, not by a longshot, but he’s still alive. That’s something.
“What’s your offer?” I ask, lowering my gun.
“You already know what it is.”
The same offer it’s always been.
“Wolfgang,” I mutter.
He nods slowly, then crosses his ankles and stuffs his hands into his pockets. In the dim lighting of his office, his silvery hair is dark grey, it makes him look more ghostly than normal—especially when he grins and lets out a low chuckle that seems to fill the room. His voice is haunting as it swells around me, a deep timbre sharpened by his Russian accent.
“Because I am merciful, I will make this offer even better than the last one.”
My eyes narrow on him.
“The last time we spoke, I wanted your little brother. In exchange for his life, I promised to leave Giovanni alone and spare your gang the struggles of war.” Volkov pauses, letting his words hang in the air. “Now, I will offer you the same thing. We can end this war right here and now. You can have your little cousin back. And you can rest assured that Giovanni will be spared. All you must do is give me your brother.”
“That offer isn’t much better than your last,” I tell him.
He nods at Morgen, still on his knees in front of Yuri’s threatening figure. “Is your cousin’s life not important to you?”
Morgen says something behind his gag that I can’t make out, but from the way he’s shaking his head, I know he’s trying to tell me not to give in. Not to trade his life for Wolf’s. I’ll remember to tell Onkel and Conrad of his bravery when I get back, with or without him. It’s strange that he’s so easily accepted his fate, but Conrad tried to assault me over it. I don’t blame either one of them. It’s a horrible situation to be in.
Too bad no one spares any empathy for me. I’m stuck in this too. I’m just as screwed as Conny. But no matter what happens here today, I will be the villain. I’ll be the man who let his cousin die, or the man who traded his brother’s life for a deal with the Russians. I will not win here. I can’t choose who to save, I can only choose who gets to hate me more.
“You know I can’t take this deal,” I say in a dark voice.
Volkov tilts his head to the side, the movement almost makes him look like a cat. Or a wolf. I’m not sure.
“What if I make it even better?”
“There is nothing else you can offer me. I will not give you my little brother.”
Morgen gasps into his gag but straightens his back and keeps his gaze forward. When I look at him, I see no judgment in his eyes, only the hardened stare of a man who’s made up his mind. A man who has realized this is his last day alive—and decided to die with his chin up.
“How do you think I so easily captured your little covert team, Jäger?” Volkov asks me.
It never dawned on me how it happened, just that it did happen and now I’ve got to fix it. I don’t let Volkov see the questions swirling in my head. I won’t give him the satisfaction of knowing just how much I’ve begun to sweat. I sharpen my gaze and harden my features, refusing to give him a verbal response.
He smiles like he’s looking at a child. “I allowed your men to sneak back into my Island. I even allowed them to reach the warehouse they intended to blow up. It wasn’t until they moved in to plant the explosives that I had them taken in.” He uncrosses his ankles and folds his arms across his chest. “I killed five of the six men you sent in. How do you think I knew which man was your cousin?”
I glance down at Morgen. With all his cuts and bruises, I assumed they tortured the information out of him, but that doesn’t make sense now. Not after seeing Morgen so willingly accept his impending death sentence. That’s not the decisiveness of a man who would start singing after one night of torture.
Morgen has more grit than that. More backbone.
“How?” I spit out the word, hating the look of Volkov’s wolfish grin and pale grey eyes.
“You have a mole in your midst.”
The words almost knock the wind out of me. A mole. A snitch. A traitor. Someone who spilled our plans to Volkov and got my own cousin taken in by the Russians. Someone who set us up to fail.
But who?
“I will tell you who,” Volkov says, reading my mind. “It must be hard to tell who is a friend and who is a foe with so many mobsters in one alliance.” He chuckles at the jab he’s just thrown at my contract with Jameson and Gio. I thought having three mafias united as one would give me a leg up in this war, but I’ve just provided Volkov with more men to bribe.
If this war were one on one, there would be no mole. My men are loyal to me. They would never turn against each other, especially not if it meant weighing Morgen’s life against Wolfgang’s. But what about the members of the Stronghold? What about the Garden? Are there rogue soldiers in their ranks? Men who just want to go home and love their wives and protect their children? Men who were spooked by the salon blowing up and the unexpected turns of our first mission?
I squeeze my eyes shut to silence all the questions screaming through my head. In the silence, I hear Volkov say, “I will tell you who the mole is.”
My eyes fly open. That’s the meat of his new deal. He will spare Giovanni, he will give me my cousin back, he will end this war right here, and he will give up the rat who’s been feeding him information. In exchange for my brother’s life.
The scars on my back begin to ache as my stress rises. This isn’t fair. This isn’t right. How can I possibly make a choice?
“How much is your brother’s life worth?” Volkov asks.
I lift my chin. “How do I know you aren’t just bluffing?”
Without a word, he walks behind his desk and turns the laptop to face me. “Watch,” he says, clicking a button.
The screen lights up and I see myself. And Rosa.
It’s footage from last night in our safehouse … We’re in bed, making love.
I grip my gun as rage crackles through me. “How dare you!”
“You asked for proof,” Volkov says with a nonchalant shrug. “Here it is.”
It isn’t that he’s gotten access to our security systems. It isn’t that he’s got a mole working for him in my alliance. It’s that he could have used any sort of footage as proof that he wanted, but he chose to disrespect me with this.
My wife is naked on the screen in front of my cousin and four Russian men. She is the wife of the German underboss. This video—playing it like this in front of everyone—is a dishonor to her name. And an insult to mine.
Volkov knows this. He chose this recording on purpose. To humiliate me. Because he blames Wolfgang for the dishonor that happened with his own daughter. The murder of Sofia Volkov. He has no proof it was murder, but Mikhail is a smart man. He doesn’t need any proof. Deep down, he’s always known the truth. He just never had the evidence he needed to justify starting a war with us over it. Not until now.
This is his vengeance. This is his way of redeeming his daughter and the shame he endured in seeing her battered, bloody body.
I get it. I really do.
I have never tried to justify Wolfgang’s behavior. I’ve only tried to protect him from a death sentence. But no matter how I feel about my brother and his cruel actions, nothing justifies what Volkov has done to Rosa. She is innocent here. She doesn’t deserve to have her privacy invaded like this. She doesn’t deserve to suffer the shame of having a bunch of men stand around and watch while we tangle in the sheets.
I lift my gun. “Turn it off.”
One of the men steps toward the laptop, but Volkov stops him. “Let it play.”
I can hear myself in the video, whispering to my wife, telling her things only she should hear. Rosa screams my name, which makes Yuri glance at the screen and smile—then he makes the mistake of reaching down to grope himself.
I put a bullet between his eyes.
Then I shoot the laptop.
And because I know it’s inevitable now, I look down and shoot Morgen too. His body hits the floor with an audible thud! right next to Yuri’s.
The silence that follows almost deafens me. It is a storm of unspoken threats, promises of danger and violence and death.
I welcome them.
“No deal,” I say finally. My voice is hoarse and low, it matches my blackened mood.
Volkov doesn’t even look at Yuri. His vision remains focused on me. “You just made a grave mistake.”
“No. I didn’t.” I lift my gun again, pointing it right at him. “I don’t care about Giovanni’s life. I can find the mole on my own. And I’ve just killed my cousin. You don’t have anything to offer me anymore.” I step forward and press the gun to his forehead. “No deal.”
“Would you shoot a man in his own home?” Volkov asks, though there is no fear in his voice, only a hint of boldness I recognize as a challenge. He wants me to shoot him, so he can die knowing his men will immediately shoot me in response. I suppose one dead Jäger is just as good as the other.
I lower the gun. “There’s been enough death today.”
“I agree. Especially since there is so much more to come.” Volkov walks around his desk, not even flinching when he steps over Yuri’s big body. “I offered you peace. You spat in my face for it. Now I will not hold back. I will not spare any member of your family.” He smirks. “Not even your pretty wife.”
I pray he dares to say more than that so I can shoot someone else, but he leaves his threat at that and jerks his head toward Morgen’s body. “Take your cousin. We will not attack for two days so you can have a proper burial, as we will have to bury Yuri now.”
I nod and tuck my gun into my waistband. “Two days.”
Twenty
The drive home is long and quiet. If I didn’t hold on to the steering wheel for dear life, I would swerve off the road from my shaking hands. I’m trembling harder than Rosa on the night I stole her innocence. It’s embarrassing.
This isn’t the first time I’ve killed someone. I don’t even know how many times I’ve pulled the trigger. I don’t want to know. But I do want to know why it’s affecting me this way right now. Even when I killed Ja’meek, I’d surprised myself by shedding a single tear. It was just one, but still. I’ve never cried over a death before. Not when I was the killer.
Maybe it’s because what happened in Volkov’s home wasn’t just about Morgen or Yuri. It’s about all of New York City now. Volkov promised he wouldn’t hold back anymore. He won’t keep our wives or children or anyone else out of it. He wants to devour the entire Apple. Even if it means Staten Island will burn too. And it’s all my fault.
My temper got the best of me. I let him bait me into shooting one of his men, giving him the excuse he needed to declare no holds barred. I should have taken Douglass with me to keep my head clear. Showing up alone was a mistake. Volkov knew that. He’d betted on it.
I grit my teeth as I realize I’d fallen right into his plans. It makes me want to turn the car around and do what I should have done in his office. But I never would have walked out of there if I had pulled the trigger again. The only reason he let me get away with killing Yuri is because he knows he’ll have his vengeance soon enough.
He’s got a mole in our ranks. And I have no idea who it is. Someone who’s been at all of our meetings, someone who knows the layout of the safehouses and our visiting/rotation schedule. But that could be anyone. Whenever we’ve handled business, there has been at least ten men present—not to mention the security details on the safehouses and the women we rescued from Staten Island.
Maybe one of them is sneaking out intel on the safehouses. Maybe someone from the Italian mafia is trying to protect what’s left of the withering Garden. Maybe one of the Stronghold soldiers wants to get revenge on Rosa for getting her mother killed months ago. They were bitter about the Willis princess’s death to the point of disowning Rosa. Our marriage was her reinstatement into the family again.
There’s just no way to tell.
Giovanni De Luca Jr.
Niccolò Romano
Aldo Romano
Marco Segreto
Jameson Willis
