The Agreement (Darkest Lies Trilogy Book 1) Bethany-Kris (best fiction novels of all time .TXT) 📖

on it. I did, Roman. I don’t want you to go to Chicago. I love having you here ... even if you don’t want to be most of the time.”

As her voice trailed off, Claire finally released her son, making him step back.

“It doesn’t fucking matter, does it?” he asked, letting out a clipped laugh. “The boss made his decision, and we all know what it means. Bratva before blood, Ma. Right?”

It was the brotherhood’s way. A long time ago, he thought he knew what that meant; even believed he was born for it.

“Roman.”

Her chiding did little for him.

“I’m not wrong, though.”

Claire stood a little stiffer. “Even so, your father has never made the wrong decision for this family.”

She held her head high, because God knew even if it broke her heart to send her son away, her loyalty for Demyan would never waver. No matter what happened—love means for always, she told him once when he dared to ask how she could love a man like his father, even if I don’t always like who he sometimes is.

Roman couldn’t help but wonder what that would feel like, to have a woman by his side who was that devoted—someone who blindly loved him, and would sacrifice anything asked if it meant being with him.

He couldn’t imagine it.

Or maybe he didn’t want to.

“Yeah, well, he is right about one thing,” Roman told his mother, refusing to meet her burning gaze. He didn’t want to watch as she fought conflicting emotions—he didn’t want to be one side of the war she had to fight. In the end, she would never defy her husband, and a part of him understood why. “A change of scenery will do me some good. I can’t wait to get the fuck out of here, and stay gone.”

“Don’t say that, you don’t mean—”

He simply walked away from his mother, feeling her stare follow him the whole way down the corridor. He didn’t look back.

FIVE

The one thing Roman knew for sure about Josef Pavlov was that he was nothing like Marky. Older, tattooed from head to toe in the symbolisms of the bratva life like everyone else in Chicago affiliated to the Yazov organization, he wasn’t exactly Roman’s first pick as a partner.

If one wanted to call him that.

Even though the two men were spending a lot of time together in close quarters—the way Roman did with Marky back in New York—Josef was being paid to do it here. And that wasn’t something he could afford to forget.

Standing side by side, the two smoked their cigarettes, Roman eyed the different rings that had been tattooed to the man’s fingers; an interesting take on a spider had been added to peek out of his sleeve at his wrist, too. He hadn’t realized how different it would be to work with men who were more traditional in a sense when it came to the Russian mob. It took him very little time in Chicago to realize his lack of decoration—by way of tattoos he should have earned over his life as a vor—was simply something that would cause suspicion for men who didn’t know him upon sight.

Josef was the only one brave enough to point it out.

He and Josef surveyed the workers in construction hats milling around the building in silence. It was a way they had found to start the day that didn’t include too much conversation usually.

Fun.

In the two weeks since he first landed in Chicago, there weren’t a lot of things Roman found he liked about the city. He wasn’t a real look-on-the-brightside type, either. He didn’t care to look for silver linings just to make his current existence better. However, he did have his own setup here getting off the ground, and even though he was well aware of the Yazov eyes constantly watching him, for the most part, they left him alone.

Except for Josef.

The bull assigned to him by Maxim Yazov didn’t fool Roman for a second. His job there wasn’t purely for protection. Josef wouldn’t have hesitated to pump a few bullets into him, and deliver him dead to the Yazov Bratva if that was his order.

Shit.

Maybe someday it would be.

For the moment, though, he shared a conversation with Josef like any guys working together would. What other choice did Roman have? It wasn’t like he knew anyone else in the city. And he couldn’t say he was keen on changing that, either.

Now that he was starting to kick things off with the chop shop, he’d already planned to bring in some of the crew from New York. The men who had worked with him for years while he built his business were as crucial to its success as his own instincts. They knew what to do, and how Roman liked to run the show.

Which was the only thing that mattered.

His circus—his fucking monkeys.

“So you literally chop the cars down, yeah?” Josef asked.

He was sucking in his cheeks to draw in a long drag of the cigarette, pulling the smoke straight into his lungs, and then releasing the gray cloud in curls around his face. The smoke almost formed a halo, making Roman grin because there was nothing holy about this man. Nothing holy about any of them.

“Yeah, it’s way easier to ship parts of a car than the whole fucking thing. Gets through ports faster, too. They never know what the fuck they’re looking at, you know? The guys I work with overseas—they put it all back together,” Roman explained.

Josef nodded his head along like the fog was finally clearing, and things were beginning to make sense to him. “And these contacts, you trust them?”

“Never had a reason not to. I’ve been fucked over in the past, and it took me a long time to build a trustworthy team of guys I work with, in New York and overseas. I mean, we are who we are—gotta be real, man. It still comes down to a goddamn word. A man’s word still counts