Filthy Lies (Akopov Bratva Book 2)

This is the way the world ends.

This is the way the world ends.

This is the way the world ends.

Not with a bang but a whimper.

Andrei Akopov’s body hitting the floor in Vince’s study doesn’t sound like the momentous event it is. Just a soft thud, a gentle exhale as the last breath leaves his lungs.

I stand in the doorway, having followed Vince and Andrei against my better judgment, my hand pressed against my mouth to stifle any scream that might escape. I watch my husband kill his father, and I don’t say a word.

Some women would run screaming from the room. Some would vomit. Some would call the police.

But I’m not “some women.”

I’m Rowan fucking Akopov.

And as I watch the blood pool beneath my father-in-law’s head, all I feel is a vicious, savage relief.noveldrama

Vince and I lock eyes across the corpse. His are cold, emotionless. He doesn’t apologize.

“Get Dimitri,” he rasps. “Tell him to bring cleaning supplies. And Rowan—” He pauses. “Make sure no one comes near this room.”

I nod and go to do as my husband said.

The party continues in blissful ignorance for another hour before the whispers start. Andrei went in but never came out. Where is the elder Akopov? What happened in that study?

By morning, it’s a full-blown crisis.

“You understand how this looks, don’t you?” Agent Carver paces Vince’s office, his immaculate suit at odds with the chaos of the situation. “Andrei publicly threatens to expose your FBI cooperation. You two have a private meeting. He disappears.” He stops, hands on his hips. “And now, his car is found abandoned at the docks, with blood in the trunk.”

The blood was my idea. A calculated risk, using some of what we cleaned from the study floor. Just enough to suggest violence but not death. Enough to make it look like a kidnapping, not a murder.

Vince remains seated, one ankle crossed over his knee, the very picture of relaxed confidence. “You’re jumping to conclusions, Agent Carver.”

“Am I?” Carver’s eyes thin out into angry slits. “Because it sounds to me like you eliminated a problem. The same kind of ‘problem-solving’ our agreement was supposed to prevent.”

“If my husband wanted to kill his father,” I interject, “he wouldn’t be stupid enough to do it at a party full of witnesses with an FBI agent in attendance.” I tilt my head, letting my hair cascade over one shoulder. “And he certainly wouldn’t leave evidence for you to find.”

Carver’s attention shifts to me. His eyes track from my face down to where my hand rests on Vince’s thigh, then back up. “Mrs. Akopov, I understand loyalty to your husband, but⁠—”

“Two plus two is four, Agent Carver.” I stand, moving to the desk where I’ve placed a folder. “We’ve been expecting something like this since Andrei learned about our arrangement with you. He had enemies everywhere, not just within his own family.”

I open the folder, spreading photographs across the desk. Surveillance photos of Nikolai Barkov meeting with representatives from the Solovyov family two days before our party. Phone records showing calls between Barkov and several known Solovyov associates.

And Andrei in the thick of it all.

“Barkov has been working with what’s left of the Solovyovs since their leadership was arrested,” I explain. “They blame Andrei for failing to warn them about the FBI’s investigation. They think he sold them out to protect his own interests.”

I slide another document toward Carver—a transcript of a conversation between Barkov and a Solovyov lieutenant, discussing plans to “make an example” of Andrei.

“Where did you get these?” Carver asks in suspicion.

“We have eyes and ears everywhere, Agent Carver,” I say with a small smile. “Just like you.”

Carver examines the evidence, his brow furrowed. “This could easily be manufactured.”

“It could,” Vince agrees, speaking for the first time since I took over. “But why would we bother? My father was a liability, but he was also the past. The council had already transferred power to me. Killing him would create exactly the kind of suspicion we’re dealing with now. It’s a risk with no reward.”

Except the satisfaction of eliminating the man who tried to have you murdered, I think but don’t say. And the protection of our daughter from a man who’d only use her to further his own ends.

Carver still looks unconvinced, but I can see doubt creeping in at the edges. “The timing is extremely convenient.”

“The timing is exactly what the Solovyovs wanted,” I counter. “Create discord within our organization just as we’ve secured a deal with the FBI. Make it look like Vince murdered his father to protect that deal. It’s elegant, really.” I gesture to the documents. “And it would have worked… if we hadn’t been watching them.”

The tension in the room is thick enough to choke on. I can feel Vince’s eyes on me, burning with a mixture of pride and need.

Carver gathers the documents, face still furrowed in a skeptical frown. “I’ll have these analyzed.” His voice is tight, strangled. “But hear me now, both of you—if I find even a shred of evidence linking either of you to Andrei’s disappearance, our agreement is null and void. I’ll personally see to it that the full weight of the RICO case comes down heavy on the Akopov organization.”

Vince rises without shying away. “We understand each other perfectly, Agent.”

After Carver leaves, silence settles over the office. I turn to Vince, my heart thumping against my ribs—not from fear, but from something completely different. Adrenaline courses through my veins like liquid fucking lightning.

“Do you think he believed us?” I ask, though it’s not really what I want to say.

What I want to say is this:

I just lied to a federal agent to cover up your murder of your father…

… and I’ve never felt more alive.

Vince crosses to me, his eyes blazing with that cold blue fire that sets my insides ablaze. He grips my face between his hands. “He believed you enough to create reasonable doubt. Which is all we needed.”

Then he kisses me. I taste blood—his or mine, I don’t know. Don’t care. His hands are everywhere, tearing at my clothes, roaming my skin.

“You were magnificent,” he growls against my throat. “A fucking queen.”

I arch into him, my body responding to his praise, needier than ever. “I did what needed to be done.”

“You lied to the FBI,” he says, his voice thick with arousal. “You protected a murderer.”

“I protected my family,” I correct him, biting his lower lip hard enough to make him hiss.

He yanks me toward the door. His grip on my wrist is just shy of painful. For a moment, I think we’re heading to our bedroom, but he pulls me into a supply closet just off the main hallway, slamming the door behind us.

“What are you⁠—”

His hand covers my mouth. “Anyone could walk by,” he whispers against my ear. “So you’ll need to be very, very quiet. Can you do that for me? Can you be my quiet good girl?”

I nod, dripping wet at the danger, the forbiddenness of it all. This sick, twisted, beautiful thing between us.

Vince spins me to face the wall, yanking my skirt up to my waist. His fingers find me soaking through the thin lace of my panties.

“So fucking wet,” he groans. “You liked it, didn’t you? Lying for me. Covering up what I did.”

“Yes,” I admit. “I shouldn’t, but I did. I fucking did.”

“Don’t you see?” His teeth graze my shoulder as he tears my panties aside. “This is who we are. This is what we’ve always been. Monsters who found each other in the dark.”

I hear his zipper, feel the thick head of him pressing against my entrance. He’s huge, always too much at first, forcing my body to yield to him.

“Say it,” he demands as he teases me with just the tip. “Say what you are.”

“I’m yours,” I gasp. I press back against him, desperate to be filled.

“What else?” He holds himself still because he knows I’m dying here.

I don’t have to ask what he’s pushing me to say. He wants to know what I’ve become. What I’ll always be now.

“I’m a monster,” I whisper. “Just like you.”

He rewards me by slamming home in one brutal thrust that makes me bite my fist to keep from screaming.

“My beautiful, perfect monster,” he praises. “My queen.”

He fucks me against the wall of the supply closet, one hand clamped over my mouth to muffle my cries, the other digging bruises into my hip. I come so hard I black out for a second, my vision swimming with dark spots as pleasure crashes through me.

When it’s over, we stand there panting, still joined, my cheek pressed against the cool plaster wall. His lips brush the shell of my ear, making me shiver despite the heat between us.

“Do you regret it?” he asks. “Any of it?”

I turn in his arms, meeting his gaze in the dim light filtering through the crack beneath the door. “I regret many things, Vince. But protecting you?” I trace the silver streak in his hair, the one that matches his father’s. “Never. Not even if it damns me to hell.”

He presses his forehead to mine. “Then we’ll burn together,” he promises. “You and me and all the bloody secrets we keep.”

“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” I whisper against his lips. “But Vince?”

“Yes?”

“Next time you decide to kill someone in our house—” I dig my nails into his shoulders. “—at least give me a fucking heads-up first.”