Felix by K.J. Dahlen

Felix:
Most of my life I’ve watched over one man, the head of the Russian Bratva.
It hasn’t been easy to keep him safe but I wouldn’t have it any other way. Now Sergi has ties in America.
He has family there and he says he’s getting too old to do this job anymore.
I can’t say he’s right or wrong but I can’t see him stepping down either.
He’s a wise man and a needed man if the Bratva is going to survive here or in America.
He’s always worked hard to get a good balance and that balance must survive, too many lives depend on him being in power.
But with all that… he has many enemies and it’s my job to protect him from those enemies.
Enemies come in all shapes and sizes, both men and women.
Just as we step on American soil, someone comes after Sergi for a crime that happened three decades ago.
A vendetta that has yet to be reconciled.
No matter what, I still have a job to do and this vendetta turns out to be a case of finding her before she can finish the job she was tasked to do.
I have to find this woman and stop her.
She’s good but I’m better and I vow that nothing will happen to Sergi on my watch.

Abby:
I’ve ben in hiding all my life and I never understood why.
My whole family has been in hiding.
When my grandparents came here thirty years ago, they had to change their names and live a lie because of some trouble my grandfather had in Russia. He had to flee for his life but no one ever told me what he’d done.
He died a bitter man but while he lived, he spread that bitterness to his children and to his grandchildren.
He called it a vendetta but I never knew what started it all.
The bitterness took my grandfather then my parents and my older brother. Now all I have left is my grandmother.
When she hears a man named Sergi is moving here, she tells me I have to finish the vendetta.
I have to bring honor back to the family, honor that was lost a lifetime ago.
To do this—I have to kill a man.
She won’t tell me what he did but I have to kill him.
This vendetta has nothing to do with me and I tell her I won’t do it.
Then she tells me what happened thirty years ago.
I finally agree the man needs killing.
It isn’t until later that I find out my grandmother lied to me.
She knew it and she did it anyway.
I felt betrayed and now I’m in big trouble.

Big trouble— about six foot four inches of it.