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The woman’s head lowered, her eyes staring blankly at her damaged feet as she failed to decide on a path.
His ears picked up on the sound of multiple footsteps long before the voice rose in greeting.
“Ah, Alina,” Mikhail Balakin called to the woman. The scar along the left side of his face made Luka certain it was him.
Luka relaxed at the other man’s presence. His own actions made sense to him finally. His instincts weren’t broken. He’d allowed the woman, Alina, to follow him as bait.
Ivankov wouldn’t have been pleased if the head of the Balakin family had lived.
“You’ve been a naughty girl,” Mikhail continued, motioning to the Bratva who accompanied him.
The paralysis that had come over Alina seemed to break, but it was too late. She struggled in silence as hands forced her to her knees. Her head bowed as she panted at the man’s feet. Her skin was pinched where their hands held her down.
Mikhail moved forward, bending over her. His hand fisted in her hair, forcing her face up. “Tell me how?”
It didn’t surprise Luka when she didn’t answer. What could she have said? She knew nothing.
The hand in her hair loosened to slide down her face. The blankness returned to her eyes as the thumb trailed over her bottom lip, though the trembling had returned.
“Fucking Lipin whore.” The slap that followed forced her to the ground. “You’ve nearly ruined me. The Lipins never could be trusted.” He dragged her up again by her hair. “Yet you were so easy to break. Your father’s death saved one of my sons from your frozen pussy.”
She spat in his face.
The saliva clung to Mikhail’s cheek, and his smile spread under it. He began to laugh.
The spark of anger drained from her face as the head of the Balakin family pulled out a knife.
Luka considered finishing the job. He wasn’t certain why he hadn’t already killed all the Balakin that were left.
Maybe it was the memory of his sister’s eyes on that night, so long ago, looking so similar to those of the woman in front of him.
“Not so broken after all,” Mikhail murmured as he brought the blade to her cheek. The red line the shallow nick created only underscored her pale skin under the streetlight. “You remember, don’t you? The feel of all I sank inside your body?” He straightened away from her, holding his knife out.
She couldn’t pull her eyes from the blade, even as it dropped to the concrete in front of her.
Mikhail wiped her spit from his face, but his eyes never left hers. “That moment of defiance deserves a reward. I’ll give you a choice. Take the knife. Do it yourself.” A madness had flooded his face. “If you don’t, you know what will come.”
Luka had once been given the same offer. And again, it wasn’t his sister he saw within the woman. It was the seeds of himself, before he’d become this monster.
When she made the same choice that he once had, grabbing the knife and lunging forward with intent, his body finally began to move. His knife made quick work of the boyeviki the Balakin leader had brought with him. One got off a shot before he lost his life, but Luka dispatched the four of them easily.
Mikhail hadn’t registered his presence. He was too intent on his prey. Though the shimmer of madness seemed similar, he was nothing like Ivankov.
“Wrong choice, Alina.”
The fight left her as Mikhail pushed her wrist hard into the wall. Just as the fight had quickly left the boy Luka had been.
Luka was no longer that boy.
But the woman, Alina, hadn’t yet changed. Her free hand scrabbled at the one Mikhail wrapped around her throat as his body pressed her into the brick. “I’m going to take this knife from you and rape you with it. You thought having me inside you hurt? Just wait. I—”
Luka had heard enough. He stabbed the Balakin leader in the side. The man still hadn’t acknowledged his presence, but killing didn’t require honor.
Mikhail released his captive as he shouted in pain, stumbling back from her. He tripped over the curb, then collapsed in the empty street.
He already bled heavily. There was an artery under the armpit that could do that. He’d bleed out soon enough. That was enough for Luka.
Luka bent to retrieve the knife, then held it out to the woman, loose in the palm of his glove.
