SILENCED

SILENCED THE FORGOTTEN BOYS: ONE SERENA AKEROYD Copyright © 2023 by Serena Akeroyd Publishing Ltd. 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. Photograph: Daniel Jaems Model: Aaron O'Connell FOREWORD & TRIGGER WARNINGS Darlings! Welcome to a brand new mafia series from me. SILENCED is book one of The Forgotten Boys and while there are Easter Eggs for fans of my Five Points’ Mob Collection, SILENCED is a complete standalone and requires no other reading to enjoy this story. Triggers: Graphic Violence Dubious Consent A heroine who has been a victim of domestic violence, including physical aggression and substance poisoning Stockholm syndrome Please note, we’re dealing with Russian characters who, while I am their puppeteer, there is no denying that in their culture, certain beliefs are set into stone and certain practices do go ahead in their social services that would horrify us. The spectrum simply does not exist over there. Our standards of care are not the same. Don’t forget when SILENCED reaches 500 reviews, head to my Diva reader group for a bonus scene! www.facebook.com/groups/SerenaAkeroydsDivas Much love and happy reading, Serena xo PLAYLIST If you’d like to hear a curated soundtrack, with songs that are featured in the book, as well as songs that inspired it, then here’s the link: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3jYiUcjkQcGLySfjR67y8b?si=2e6ca51b157e4bd9&pt=db1205412d1c45e13d9b86630d45c191 CONTENTS FOREWORD & TRIGGER WARNINGS PLAYLIST “The darker the night, the brighter the stars. The deeper the grief, the closer is God.” 1. Where it begins… 2. Cassie 3. Cassie 4. Nikolai 5. Nikolai 6. Cassie 7. Nikolai 8. Cassie 9. Nikolai 10. Cassie 11. Nikolai 12. Cassie 13. Nikolai 14. Cassie 15. Text chat 16. Nikolai 17. Cassie 18. Text Chat 19. Cassie Chapter 20 21. Nikolai 22. Cassie 23. Cassie 24. Nikolai 25. Nikolai 26. Cassie 27. Cassie 28. Cassie 29. Nikolai 30. Cassie 31. Nikolai 32. Cassie 33. Cassie 34. Cassie 35. Cassie 36. Nikolai Chapter 37 38. Nikolai 39. Cassie 40. Nikolai 41. Cassie 42. Cassie 43. Cassie 44. Nikolai 45. Nikolai 46. Cassie 47. Nikolai 48. Nikolai Chapter 49 50. Cassie 51. Text Chat 52. Misha 53. Maxim 54. Cassie 55. Nikolai 56. Cassie 57. Nikolai Chapter 58 59. Text chat 60. Text Chat 61. Cassie Author Note Serena’s Mafia/Mob/MC Universe Free Book! Connect with Serena About the Author “THE DARKER THE NIGHT, THE BRIGHTER THE STARS. THE DEEPER THE GRIEF, THE CLOSER IS GOD.” FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY 1 WHERE IT BEGINS… *Nikolai is a speaker of sign language. Please, unless otherwise specified, whenever you read his dialogue, assume that he is signing, not verbally speaking the words. This will make for a much more enjoyable reading experience. As for any other language, sign language uses the same dialogue tags as any verbal variety.* * * * Daylight - David Kushner * * * “Do you think she’s dead?” It’s a good question. Through the dusty glass panes of a window that saw better days a decade ago, I can barely make out the still form lying on the shady motel room’s vomit-yellow, flower-splotched carpet. Cassiopeia Rundel could be dead. From this distance, and with the terrible visibility, I can’t answer for certain. Dmitri Turgenev, my second-in-command, nudges me at my lack of response. “Well?” I grunt. He scrubs his floppy blond hair out of his eyes, muttering, “The men are in the car. You can talk.” My brow furrows as I shoot him an impatient look and sign, “You need a haircut.” He smirks. “I might head to the barbers if you told me to.” “When do I ever talk?” I dismiss. He mumbles something beneath his breath then switches to Russian: “You’d think I’d get used to you being a mute after eighteen years of knowing you, wouldn’t you?” With a pointed stare, I nod. “Why is it you can talk to Misha? I mean, five words are five words. Why do I get zero?” This time, his petulance has me rolling my eyes even as I wipe at the glass to try to clean it. I need to know if the woman is dead or not because there’s no sense in wasting my time on rescuing a corpse. “I don’t care that I sound like I’m pouting. I totally am,” Dmitri grumbles, switching back to English and breaking into my thoughts with the precision of an ice pick through the surface of a frozen lake. Then, he huffs when I remain silent and don’t bother signing a reply. Why he huffs when I’m always silent is between him and God. “If I asked you to cross the country to go and rescue a stranger from her husband, would you?” he peppers. Breaking off from my attempts to clean the filthy panes of glass, I heave an irritated sigh but, again, I nod. Not that Louisville is across the country from Miami… Still, he proves that geography never was his strongest subject in school and that he’s twenty-four going on four by perking up at that. Not for the first time, I regret bringing him to the US when he was a teenager because that impacted his personality and made him, God help me, exuberant. I decide to deflate his bubble and gesture at the SUV that’s parked behind us. “No way,” he argues. It’s these things that irritate the living hell out of me. “No way.” When there is a way. “Totally.” A horrific adverb. “Like.” Always surrounded by, “like,” commas. “Whatever.” Without a question mark. Americans somehow utter a thousand words without meaning any of them, and because he’s spent most of his formative years in the States, he sounds like them, acts like them, and talks like them. As much as I prefer my adopted home to the motherland, the depth of his integration is horrific. Last week, he was even talking