Nightfall Read online

  Nightfall

  Tsezar Bratva

  Nicole Fox

  Copyright © 2019 by Nicole Fox

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

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  Contents

  NIGHTFALL

  1. Dmitry

  2. Courtney

  3. Dmitry

  4. Courtney

  5. Dmitry

  6. Dmitry

  7. Courtney

  8. Dmitry

  9. Courtney

  10. Dmitry

  11. Courtney

  12. Dmitry

  13. Courtney

  14. Courtney

  15. Dmitry

  16. Courtney

  17. Dmitry

  18. Dmitry

  19. Courtney

  20. Dmitry

  21. Courtney

  22. Courtney

  23. Dmitry

  24. Courtney

  25. Dmitry

  26. Courtney

  27. Dmitry

  28. Courtney

  29. Dmitry

  30. Courtney

  31. Courtney

  32. Dmitry

  Also by Nicole Fox

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  NIGHTFALL

  Tsezar Bratva

  By Nicole Fox

  I just discovered the don’s darkest secret. Wait ‘til he finds out mine…

  The Bratva don and I made a deal:

  Spare my father. Take me instead.

  But Dmitry Tsezar wasn’t satisfied with my body.

  He wanted everything else, too.

  My obedience. My submission.

  My heart. My soul.

  And when that still wasn’t enough, he came to take my life.

  But then I found something.

  Something twisted. Something wrong.

  Something hidden in a locked room of his mansion, in a wing he warned me never, ever to wander near.

  When I opened the door and discovered Dmitry’s secret…

  Everything changed forever.

  1

  Dmitry

  The footage is grainy. Dots and whirls of gray and white flutter around the screen as though I’m seeing the scene through a snowstorm.

  Still, it isn’t enough to disguise his face.

  “It’s Sevastian,” someone says.

  I don’t respond. I already know. Plus, I don’t want to look as surprised as I feel.

  Sevastian Nikitin has been one of my closest friends since I was a kid. We practically grew up together. The Bratva is a family, but within that family, I considered Sevastian a brother.

  And now, I’m watching him spill his guts to the FBI.

  “Who knows what he told them,” someone whispers. “We could all be fucked.”

  I glance down at the stack of papers on my desk—pictures, dates, and locations. All of it proof of Sevastian’s meetings with federal agents.

  When I first got word that he might be a rat, I didn’t want to believe it. So, I had him tailed. For weeks, he was monitored and followed, and I hoped it would turn out to be nothing more than a Bratva rumor. Maybe even a case of jealousy. Another member wishing they had Sevastian’s close connection to the boss.

  But now I know the truth.

  “We can’t let this stand.”

  I look over my shoulder and see Rurik Zaytsev standing behind me. He’s leaning back against the wall, arms crossed over his chest. His face is half hidden in shadow, but he stands tall when he sees me looking.

  Next to Sevastian, Rurik is my second most trusted lieutenant. Though, with Sevastian’s betrayal still fresh, I wonder whether I can truly trust anyone.

  “Obviously,” I say, sharp enough that the rest of the men in the room straighten their spines. “Do I strike any of you as a forgiving man?”

  The question is rhetorical, but a few men shake their heads.

  “A good leader is merciless to those who betray him and his family. You’re my family and Sevastian has betrayed us all. So, he must die.”

  There’s no room for emotions in the Bratva, especially for the leader. There are relationships, but they’re founded on trust. When that trust is broken, the relationship breaks with it. If I want my men to respect me, I have no choice but to kill Sevastian.

  I can’t give him an opportunity to defend himself—because there is no defense. There is nothing he could say that would excuse the fact that he met with federal agents on numerous occasions without once telling me.

  My father before me, and my grandfather before him, led the Tsezar Bratva with an iron fist. Ruthless. Unforgiving. They had no time for regret or disappointment. There was only anger and a sense of satisfaction when justice was dealt.

  I intend to lead in the same way.

  I pause the video, my office plunging into silence except for the nervous breathing of my men.

  I point to Rurik. “Send for Sevastian.”

  Rurik answers with a sharp nod. “Should I tell him to meet you at headquarters?”

  I think on it for a moment and shake my head. “My house.”

  I don’t often conduct business from my home, especially when it will require a cleanup, but Sevastian will be nervous if I tell him to meet me at my office. He may guess I know something and dive into the rat’s nest prepared for him by the FBI. I have to make him believe things are just as they should be. As they always have been.

  “Actually,” I say as Rurik is leaving. “Take two men with you and pick him up. If he asks any questions, tell him I told you it’s an emergency. I don’t want to give him the chance to run.”

  Rurik grabs two other lieutenants and the rest of the room follows them out, leaving me behind with the paused video showing Sevastian taking an envelope from the undercover agent he met at the restaurant.

  I study the screen for another moment, assuring myself that the blurry man there is really Sevastian. The camera work is sloppy, but I see the tattoo peeking out from the collar of his sweater as he reaches across the table. It’s the brown bear he had tattooed on his back the day he turned eighteen. A symbol of his love and loyalty for our family. Our organization. Our purpose.

  A symbol that, in the end, meant nothing to him at all.

  I turn off the television and leave. I have to be at the house when Sevastian arrives, so there is no time to linger.

  Sevastian has always had pitch-black hair. As a child, even into his teen years, his face peeked out from under the mop like a friendly ghost, smiling and laughing.

  While I followed the example set for me by my father and grandfather, greeting people with a stoic nod and burying my laughter behind a clenched jaw, Sevastian was jovial. He pulled pranks on maids, told dirty jokes loud enough for my grandmother to hear, and followed me blindly through every bad decision I ever made.

  When I see Sevastian walking up my stone driveway, flanked on either side by lieutenants, it’s that pale, smiling boy I see. Not a traitor—my friend.


  Weakness. That’s what my father would call this emotion.

  Sevastian turned his back on our family. He considered himself stronger alone, better without the Bratva at his side. So now, he has to know exactly what it would feel like to be on his own.

  There can be no mercy, no holding back.

  Starting now, Sevastian is not my friend or my brother. He is my enemy, and I would do well to remember that.

  By the time the front door opens, I’m sitting down in an armchair in the den, one leg crossed over the other, hands folded in my lap. I’m at ease. Visibly, at least.

  Sevastian appears in the doorway first. “Dmitry.”

  The lieutenants fall away beside him, hanging back, and I see Sevastian glance around. His brow furrows, and I know he is suspicious. As he should be. Sevastian has always been a smart man, and I have no intention of fooling him tonight. Surely, he has to suspect what is coming for him.

  “Sevastian,” I say warmly, beckoning him into the sitting room. “Come, sit.”

  He hesitates. “I was told there’s some kind of emergency?”

  “Did they say that?” I ask, eyebrow raised, looking around him to where my lieutenants are lurking in the shadows of the entryway. They won’t interrupt the proceedings unless they have to. Unless Sevastian puts up more of a fight than I expect. “Very dramatic. It’s hardly an emergency.”

  “Okay,” he says, his tone somewhere between a statement and a question. “So, what’s up?”

  I gesture for him to sit on the sofa next to me. “You missed our meeting tonight.”

  Sevastian’s forehead wrinkles as he sits. “I didn’t know there was a meeting.”

  “I sent a message to everyone in the Bratva. Did you not get one?”

  He pulls out his phone and scrolls through it. “No. Strange. This piece of shit phone is always acting up on me.”

  He scrolls to the top and then looks through his messages a second time. I wonder if he’s worried about any messages he may have missed from the FBI. Though, if he’s smart, he’ll have a second phone to communicate with them. He won’t use the same phone he uses for Bratva work. It’s too big of a risk.

  “It wasn’t anything too important,” I say, waving my hand. “I just wanted to call you in here and make sure you were still alive. It’s been a long time since we’ve hung out the way we used to.”

  “It has,” he agrees. Sevastian runs a hand through his spiked black hair, the gelled strands returning to their previous spikiness the moment his hand moves past them. “I’ve let myself get a little busy.”

  “I’m not giving you too much work, am I?” I ask, leaning in.

  Sevastian swallows. “No, no. Anything for the Bratva, you know that.”

  He smiles, but his eyes are wide and alert. Everything about his body language tells me he’s uncomfortable. Probably because I’m being kind to him. Sevastian knows me well enough to know that, if I’m being kind, there is an ulterior motive.

  He plants his palms on his knees and sits forward on the couch. “So, you just brought me here to check up on me? I’m flattered to hear you care so much about me.”

  “I care about those who care about me,” I say, reaching out and clapping a hand on his shoulder. “And I’m loyal to those who are loyal to me.”

  I see him process the words, and his smile slips. Sevastian goes pale, and he swallows a lump in his throat before taking a deep breath. “Why am I here, Dmitry?”

  “Because I sent for you,” I say simply.

  He nods, his hands lacing together in front of him. “What for?”

  I sit back in my chair and stretch. Then, I turn and grab the crystal globe sitting on the side table. It’s a trinket from my father’s office. Something given to him as a gift from another boss, maybe a past leader of the Japanese Yakuza. It means nothing to me, but I’ve kept it around. I spin the globe with my finger, watching it turn slowly.

  “Why?” Sevastian repeats, his voice shaking. “What is going on? And why is everyone waiting in the other room? What is this about? Have I done something?”

  “Have you?” I ask quietly, tilting my head towards him.

  He licks his lips, and I can see his fingers shaking. Slowly, the tremor moves up his body, claiming him inch by inch. He can’t stop it. Soon, his head is twitching back and forth, too.

  Sevastian is terrified.

  “Who told you?” he asks.

  I appreciate his not trying to lie his way out of things, even if it’s not like he stood a chance if he made the attempt.

  “Does it matter?”

  He bites the inside of his cheek.

  “What did you tell them?” I ask calmly, letting my duty to the Bratva wash away everything else.

  There are men waiting in the other room, expecting me to look out for them. To take care of them.

  Who knows what Sevastian told the FBI? Who he turned over? Any one of my men could be hauled in for questioning and it’s entirely Sevastian’s fault.

  And ultimately, my fault.

  For trusting a traitor. For being loyal to a man who wasn’t loyal to me.

  Now, I have to rectify it.

  “Does it matter?” Sevastian asks, repeating my own question back to me. “You’re going to kill me regardless of what I say.”

  I nod. He isn’t wrong. “I would respect you more if you confessed. It might lessen the severity of your punishment.”

  “Bullshit,” he spits. “I’m dying tonight regardless. So, go ahead, Dmitry. Do what you brought me here to do.”

  When I don’t move, Sevastian leans forward, his top lip pulled back in a snarl. “What? Are you afraid to hurt your best friend? Because that’s what we are, right? Best friends. You know I only did what I did to save my own ass. It had nothing to do with you or the Bratva. I wouldn’t have gone to the FBI if they hadn’t found me first. That’s why you didn’t kill me the moment I walked through the door. Because you know I have an explanation. You know I only did what I had to do—what anyone would have done. You know—”

  Before he can finish the sentence, I rear back and smash the crystal globe against the side of his head.

  Sevastian drops to the floor without so much as a groan, knocked out cold.

  I study the globe, and aside from a smear of blood over Europe, it’s as if nothing happened at all. I replace it on the side table and stand up, stepping over Sevastian’s body on my way out of the room.

  I nod to Rurik as I pass. “Take him to the basement. Chain him up.”

  My men get to work without hesitation.

  The room is silent as I enter.

  Sevastian is in the middle of the room—my personal gym—chained to the bench press. He can lift his arms a few inches, but otherwise, he’s immobilized.

  “I’m not going to tell you anything,” he says, flinching away from me as I near him. “So you might as well kill—”

  The wooden paddle cracks across his face before he can finish.

  There’s already a lump where I hit him with the globe, and now I’ve added a split across his cheekbone. Blood pours from the wound.

  “Who did you turn over?” I ask. “Which stash houses did you reveal?”

  Sevastian spits blood at my feet and glares up at me. I bring my knee up hard and fast into his chin. I hear his teeth smash together.

  “Which of your brothers did you rat on?” I growl.

  “Brothers,” Sevastian laughs. “You were my brother once, too, Dmitry. What are we now?”

  I bend down until we’re nose to nose and growl, “Whatever we are is your doing. Remember with every flash of pain that you are the one who turned your back on me.”

  Sevastian looks away, and I see shame cross his face before he hides it with a scowl. He clenches his jaw and winces. I wouldn’t be surprised if I cracked one of his teeth. “I’m not going to talk.”

  “You’re loyal to the feds now?” I hiss. “Remember when you said you only did what you had to do to survive? Well, your life is on the l
ine again. Suddenly you aren’t so interested in begging?”

  “Because it won’t do any good,” he said, lifting his chin like a petulant child. “You’ll kill me, either way. At least this way, I’ll take some of you down with me.”

  The lieutenants around me bristle with anger. I know they want to tear into Sevastian. They want a piece of him. They want revenge.

  I try to imagine stepping back and giving them free rein, but no matter how much Sevastian has changed, I still see the pale boy peeking out from the dark black hair. I see the friendly little ghost who existed next to me for most of my life. My best friend. My brother-in-arms.

  The paddle clatters across the floor when I toss it aside and trade it for the gun at my hip. I lift my arm, the muzzle pointed at Sevastian’s mouth.

  “Do you have anything left to say?” I ask.

  Sevastian looks up at me, his eyes narrowed. “Yeah. Fuck—”

  I pull the trigger and he slumps forward.

  My ears are still ringing when I tell my men to clean up the mess. I don’t look at his body before I leave. I’ve shown my family I don’t stand for traitors, and I’ve maintained my authority. There is no need to carry the image of Sevastian’s dead body with me. My job here is done.

  Up in my office, I make a few calls, announcing Sevastian’s actions and my sentencing, ensuring the news spreads quickly to the rest of the Bratva. When I’m done, I look down and realize there is blood spattered on my shirt.