“Speaking of keeping you in the dark,” Gavriil says before walking back toward me with the blindfold hanging in his hand.
I try to move away from him, but my back hits the wall, blocking my path of escape as Gavriil ties the blindfold around my head. Protests rise up my throat, but I don’t cry out like I did when I was a scared child.
That won’t help me now.
“Maybe I should silence you too,” Gavriil tells me. “You’ve forgotten how to shut up and fall in line.”
“You’re just worried I’ll tell you something that you don’t want to hear,” I say, looking straight ahead where I assume Gavriil is still standing. “Your plans aren’t working. You’re costing us lives, not me. These aren’t a bunch of idiot bikers, are they? You’re going to lose whatever conflict we’re in right now.”
Gavriil is eerily quiet for a few seconds, making uneasiness creep up the back of my neck. “You must feel lonely in here since you want to talk so much. Too bad your loyal men are receiving the same depravation punishment at the moment, complete with gags.”
Am I supposed to thank him for not gagging me?
I roll my eyes behind the blindfold as I hear his footsteps fade away, followed by the sound of the cell door opening and shutting. So much for that. Gavriil’s stubbornness is going to throw him into an early grave, and there won’t be anything that I can do to stop it.
My body aches as I continue standing there, unsure of how many hours it’s been since I last sat or laid down. I’m sure he’ll tack on a few more hours because of what I said. He doesn’t like being called a failure or someone insinuating that he is one.
I suppose no one does, but Gavriil always takes things further than anyone else. He has to make a point. He has to come out on top.
Whatever is happening upstairs, I pray he gets it under control before it’s too late. The last thing that I need is to worry about another threat to Alina’s safety. Especially when I’m unable to be there to save her.
Alina’s life is in Gavriil’s hands now. And that’s what terrifies me most.
While I don’t think he would intentionally kill her, I don’t know if he’s loyal enough tometo save her at all costs.
18
Gavriil
Bad news hits harderwhen you’re already unraveling.
I hear a buzz of overlapping voices from out in the hallway before I throw open the door to the meeting room. I walk straight to the head of the table, but I don’t sit down. Too much anger and adrenaline courses through my veins to allow me to relax in the slightest.
How dare Dominik accuse me of being distracted by the girl?
She’s not that important.
I repeat it until it almost sounds true.
“What happened?” I demand from the men I put in charge.
“Things just?—”
I lift my hand, cutting off Matvei from saying another word. “I don’t want excuses. I want a walkthrough. Start to finish.”
Matvei nods, glancing at the others uneasily before turning back to me. A smear of dried blood runs along the side of his jaw, but I’m pretty sure that it isn’t his. “We positioned our strike team according to the intel from our past recon missions. Wethought we knew exactly where the Irish patrol would be and when.”
I nod as I listen, tension filling the quiet room.
“The Irish hit us from behind. They saw us before we saw them because they went down a different street than we expected,” Matvei explains. “We put up a good fight, but they had the upper hand. We were caught off guard.”
How were we placed incorrectly? We did multiple recon missions to assess the patrol’s movements. I went on one of the missions at the very start of this whole plan.
“How many did we lose?” I ask.
“Three,” Daniil says from the other side of the table, and the word lands heavier than a bullet. “Two died instantly from gunshot wounds. One bled out before we could help him.”
My hand clenches behind my back, fury blooming within me as I listen to how our solid plan fell apart at the seams because of one fucked up detail.
