There was a time when I used to react the way Lauren does to killing. I was barely a teenager when I first saw my father shoot a man dead. He always had enemies spawning at his back. At the time, I never knew why, but now as Bratva leader, I realize the title comes as a package deal.
Anyway, back when I was a child, I saw death the same way Lauren sees it now—terrifying. I always thought there must have been another way to win, but when my mother died because of my father, I reached the conclusion that sometimes there isn’t. Sometimes the only way to win is to show your teeth and make a statement. And in my world, that doesn’t happen without taking a life or two.
My father won for a time before his death—he was cold-blooded, and therefore a natural. He didn’t care much that he lost his wife. All he cared about from that day to his last was power and principle. He kept on winning until his death, when he was finally captured and killed by the Italians.
But my cause of death isn’t going to be the Italians.
It’s going to be Lauren and our unborn child.
Yesli eto tak, to pust’ tak i budet.
I keep an eye on her as she walks through the alleyway, arms still huddled around her torso. People aren’t supposed to make me feel things.
But she does.
People are supposed to be two-dimensional, women especially.
Women aren’t supposed to distract me from my work.
I want to think that I’m only invested in her because she’s carrying my child, but deep down, I know it’s more than that. I knew that Lauren was a huge fucking liability from the beginning. I still entertained her. I fucked her, thinking it would release all of the sexual tension and set me straight again, but I couldn’t have been more wrong.
I fucked up, and it’s going to cost one of us. But the worst part is that I don’t want her to pay the price.
It will have to be me.
And whether I like it or not, things have already been set in motion.
Chapter Seventeen
Lauren
“Do you have him?” Nikolai asks, speaking on the phone to someone.
Probably one of his Bratva thugs.
He nods in response to whatever the person on the other end says. “Khoroshiy.Incinerate the body and clean up the scene…Da.No loose ends.Spasibo.” He ends the call and turns back to me, watching.
“What?”
“You are a nice addition to my couch.”
I level him with a steady look. I still can’t believe what just happened. He just murdered a guy who was about to murder me, and now here I am, I’m sitting on his couch, trying to make sense of it all. As for Nikolai, he’s clearing up the evidence, like it’s just another day at work. But then again, what else can you expect from a Russian mobster?
I bring my legs up onto the couch and settle into the throw cushions. I must give it to him—his penthouse is state-of-the-art. I expected nothing less, remembering his estate outside of Atlanta where Sophia and Timur got married.
Much like the estate, though, everything is too big. There’s too much space that no amount of deluxe decor could fill. The windows are also enormous, extending all the way from the carpet up to the second floor of the apartment. We’re high up in the sky, maybe so far up that if I were to smash one of the panes, I’d struggle to breathe from the limited amount of oxygen.
City lights twinkle beyond the windows. Everything seems much more peaceful up here. But the peace is short-lived.
I look away from the window and settle back into the couch, exhaustion weighing me down from earlier today. From retrieving secret files from Father’s computer to almost being suffocated, I feel like I could pass out for the next twenty-four hours.
I can’t afford to rest, though.
All I want to do is go back to my own apartment and get away from the harsh realities of the world for a minute, but I can’t. Not tonight, anyway. Nikolai just saved my life. I can’t ignore that. If it wasn’t for him, it would bemylifeless body decaying in that alleyway.Mybody being incinerated.
It seems there’s another force involved in all of this.
It would explain why Nikolai has been so tense lately.
