BOUND BY BLOOD AND LIES

"Michael!" Alina screamed, lunging forward, but Julian’s outstretched arm caught her across the chest like an iron bar, holding her in place.

"Don't move," Julian warned, his eyes locked on Helena and the two heavily armed enforcers flanking her.

Michael groaned on the marble floor, coughing up blood that spattered against the pristine white stone. He looked up, his one unswollen eye widening in sheer terror as he recognized Alina. "A-Alina... get away... she’s..."

"Save your breath, boy," Helena Vance said disdainfully, nudging Michael’s injured ribs with the polished tip of her cane. The young man cried out in agony, curling into a fetal position. Helena turned her gaze toward Julian, her lips curling into a satisfied smirk. "It took my interrogators three hours to extract him from Alexander Cross’s safehouse in Queens. It seems our former intelligence broker wasn't working with the federal government after all. He was working with him."

Julian’s eyes narrowed into dangerous slits. "Cross was using Michael as bait."

"Cross was using Michael to get the Petrov girl into this house," Helena corrected, taking two slow steps into the penthouse. "Cross knew you had a soft spot for tragic cases, Julian. He knew that if this girl came to you with a story of betrayal and a blank drive, you would circle the wagons and protect her. And while you were busy playing hero, Cross’s men hacked into our satellite relays."

Helena raised the antique leather journal in her gloved hand. "The master ledger was never digital, Julian. You know that. It exists only in this book. Cross sent his ultimatum to you because he knew you would come to me to demand the trade to save your little Russian whore."

"She's my wife under syndicate law, Mother," Julian said, his voice dropping into a deadly, flat cadence. "Salvatore Marcone signed the blood pact. If you touch her, you break the treaty."

"Marcone signed a pact for an archivist named Alina Brooks," Helena snapped, her voice cracking like a whip through the penthouse. "He did not sanction the marriage of the Vance heir to the direct biological daughter of Nikolai Petrov! If I reveal her true identity to the syndicate board tomorrow morning, the marriage is annulled, you are stripped of your command, and she is executed as an enemy combatant!"

Alina stepped around Julian’s arm, ignoring his warning growl. She looked directly at the woman who had terrorized an entire city for three decades. "What do you want, Helena?"

Helena’s cold blue eyes locked onto Alina, devoid of humanity. "I want the Petrov syndicate eradicated. The five families are meeting at the docks at midnight to divide Nikolai’s territory. Nikolai is locked in our black site, but his lieutenants are holding the Brighton Beach shipping yards. They will only surrender their arms to one person: Nikolai's legitimate heir."

Helena tossed a heavy, gold-plated pen onto the coffee table.

"Sign the succession decree, Alina. Transfer the entire Bratva infrastructure to the Vance family. Do it, and I will hand over the neutralizing transmitter to deactivate the capsule in your chest. Refuse, and I will let the timer expire while your brother watches."

Alina looked from the gold pen to Michael, who was weeping silently on the floor, broken and broken-spirited. "And Michael? What happens to him?"

"He receives a one-way ticket to South America and five hundred thousand dollars to disappear forever," Helena said smoothly.

"She's lying," Julian said, his hand tightening on his gun. "The moment you sign that decree, she kills both of you, takes the docks, and presents your corpses to the syndicate board as proof of a failed Russian coup."

"Julian," Helena said coldly, "you are testing my maternal patience."

"I stopped being your son the day you murdered my real father in his sleep twenty years ago," Julian said, his voice quiet, lethal, and shocking in its absolute stillness.

Alina gasped. Helena’s posture stiffened instantly, the mask of supreme composure fracturing for a fraction of a second.

"You think I didn't know?" Julian whispered, taking a slow step toward his adoptive mother. "You thought I believed the lie about the Carbone family hit? I found the ballistic reports three years ago, Helena. You put the bullet in his skull so you could take his seat at the high table."

Helena’s eyes flashed with murderous fury. "I built this empire from the gutter! Your father was weak, and you are following in his footsteps!"

Suddenly, the floor-to-ceiling glass behind them shattered under an anti-materiel sniper round.

The heavy bullet obliterated the head of the guard on Helena’s left, spraying the wall in crimson. Before the body hit the floor, smoke grenades crashed through the shattered window, releasing thick, blinding black clouds of tactical tear gas.