“So what’ve you got planned for us?” I ask when we’re all situated and Misha’s driving us off the property.
Yuri looks back from the passenger seat. “Just a little something we need to take care of. Thought you might like to see it.”
“Don’t worry,” Misha says. “It doesn’t involve wetsuits.”
Luka looks over at me. “You went surfing?”
“I did.”
“How was it?” he asks.
“Fucking cold,” I tell him, “but it was more fun than I thought it’d be. You should try it.”
He scoffs at that and asks, “Did Ev like it?”
“No, not even a little bit,” I say, laughing at the memory.
“I’m with Ev on this one. We’ll cheer you on from the beach, preferably while also wearing a down jacket.”
Luka and I continue with the light conversation while we both keep an eye on where we’re going, and when Misha pulls up next to a rundown-looking building, I look over to see mybrother pin the location and send it to Max before putting his phone away.
We hang back long enough to give us a few seconds of privacy once Misha and Yuri get out and shut their doors.
“Don’t fucking give them an inch,” Luka says.
“I wasn’t planning on it,” I tell him before opening my door and getting out.
We follow Sitka’s brothers around the building, entering through a side door that I notice has brand-new locks on it that don’t match the decrepit state of the building at all. This must be one of the locations their Bratva uses, similar to the warehouses we have back home.
When Yuri flicks the lights, revealing a man who’s tied to a chair in the center of the room, it takes me a second to recognize him. Luka’s face is guarded, giving nothing away, and when neither one of us reacts, Misha laughs and nudges the man’s foot. Panicked eyes look around the room, but the tight gag in his mouth makes it impossible for him to do anything but grunt uselessly against it. He’s been stripped down to his boxers, and they’ve obviously already had a bit of fun with him. Aside from some very bruised ribs, a broken nose, and busted lips, nothing is life-threatening, but I know it’s not going to stay that way. We’re revealing our faces to him, and that only means one thing. The man in the chair, the one who’d grabbed onto Sitka the night the fight broke out, is not leaving this place alive.
“So what’s this about?” I finally ask when neither one offers an explanation.
Misha looks down at the bound man and fists his hair hard enough to jerk his head back and make him let out another muffled yell. He keeps his eyes on me when he says, “This is about someone thinking he can touch our sister and live to tell about it.”
We all ignore the muffled protests of the poor fuck who has no idea what’s going on.
“He touched Sitka?” Luka asks.
“He did,” Yuri says. “We went racing one night and a fight broke out. This dumbass thought he’d take the opportunity to try and grab her. Damien was kind enough to punch him for us and get her to safety, but we couldn’t just let it slide.”
“He didn’t know who she was,” I remind him. “She was wearing a helmet.”
“True,” Misha agrees, “but he still touched her. Things would be so much worse for him if he’d known who she was and touched her anyway.”
I ignore the threat behind his words and shrug my shoulders. “Still seems a bit like overkill to me, but do what you need to do.”
“Oh, we plan on it,” Yuri says, already holding a large knife in his hand.
Crossing my arms over my chest, I watch as both brothers circle the terrified guy in the chair. Misha pulls out a long, serrated blade that Sasha would probably appreciate and without warning slams it down into the guy’s thigh. The high-pitched scream isn’t nearly as muffled by the gag as I’d like it to be.
Luka and I watch with bored expressions as they taunt the man, stabbing him to cause pain but not death. I may not enjoy watching torture, but I’ve been a member of the Bratva long enough to see my fair share of it, and I can school my features into an unreadable mask with the best of them. Luka gives a bored sigh and grabs his phone, sending off another text. I look over at it, but I can’t read it, so I put my eyes back on the man who’s slowly bleeding out.
When Misha grabs the man’s hair again and drags his blade across his throat, creating a deep enough gash to make me think he might be aiming for decapitation, I keep my face blank andignore the squelchy wet sound of him sawing through muscle and tendon.
The silence that follows is deafening, and I’m quick to break it. “Well, thanks for getting me out of the house for this, guys. Ev’ll be sorry he missed it.”
Yuri and Misha are covered in blood, looking more rabid than sane, and when I smile at them and ask, “Do you mind if we stop and grab something on the way back? I’m starving. That sandwich I ate didn’t cut it.”
