I sagged into the tree as I examined the thought that’d been gnawing at me:
Hating Dmitri had been easier than hating myself.
Dmitri may have murdered my brother, but if he hadn’t done it, I would’ve failed the Pakhan’s edict, because I couldn’t hurt my brother. Dmitri saved my life.
But neither Kiril nor I would’ve been in that room if Kiril hadn’t taken the fall for that fateful mission….
My phone beeped. My stomach dropped as I read the message.
‘Kill order: Natalya Markova.’
‘She’s been given the directive to kill you as well. Whoever survives will receive a boost to their ranking.’
Chapter forty-eight
Alisa
I squeezed the phone in my hand, hoping that I was hallucinating and not actually being ordered to kill my only friend in the Bratva. Each time I re-read it, the message remained identical.
With a racing heart I squinted into the dark, praying that Natalya hadn’t gotten the message before me.
My immediate priority was to get out of here. I needed to find somewhere safe to regroup.
Dmitri’s warm, cozy apartment flashed in my mind. Even though it was farther than my father’s house, I immediately headed in that direction.
My heart squeezed as I realized it was the only place in the city where I felt safe.
A twig snapped, and I spun around, hoping against hope that it was just a squirrel. Natalya stepped out from behind a tree, her face unreadable.
My stomach dropped as we stared at each other. The hurtful words she’d hurled at me the last time I’d seen her laid in the tenfeet of distance between us. Despite the pain that seared into my nerves, one fact remained true.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” I said.
Emotion rippled across her face, and my heart squeezed in on itself. Her betrayal hurt me, but that didn’t erase the moments that lay before that. Laughing until we wheezed, nudging each other during particularly long sessions at the Pakhan’s, struggling to learn Russian as children.
The memories trickled through my mind as she stared back at me with bright eyes.
“I’ll make it quick and painless,” she said quietly, but the wind carried her words through the air and pierced my heart.
This was how things always ended in the Bratva. With death and regret. I wrapped my arms around my chest, feeling like my heart had been scooped out of the cavity and was about to plop onto the frozen grass.
Natalya stepped towards me, and I kept clutching my chest. How did this keep happening? Only death stretched around me, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.
But I refused to stand here and accept it. I turned on my heel and ran.
My lungs burned as I gulped down freezing air. Her footsteps followed me, and I knew I was just putting off the inevitable. Even if I somehow made it out of this park alive, she wouldn’t stop hunting me.
In the end her need to win–her very survival–depended on ending me. There was no room for friendship there.
Over the years, the microdosing had done a number on my lungs. They frantically heaved as I tried to force myself to keep going.
The doctor had been right after all: increasing the drugs would end up killing me one day. Although he probably hadn’tpredicted it’d be because my body was too weak to win a footrace.
Tears fled down my face as I looked over my shoulder. Grim determination lit up Natalya’s face as she gained on me. When she dragged a knife out of her coat, I wasn’t even angry.
All I could focus on was the calming warmth of Dmitri’s body while he held me last night. The smile that had lit up his face when he’d caught me making muffins.
Even as I enjoyed those moments, I’d known they were temporary. Nothing good ever lasted in this dark world we lived in. Inevitably I’d lose that little slice of happiness I’d greedily snatched up, but I wasn’t ready for it to end.
