Page 30 of Bratva Sacrifice

I’m never coming home.

Despite my agitation, a short laugh bursts from my lungs.

No, she is not. Not in the way she intends. But she is going to what will be her home.

∞∞∞

Katya sleeps through everything. The ride to the airport, the turbulence the plane hits halfway through the trip back to Chicago. Her head lolls against my shoulder, her breaths slow and deep and even. Her blonde hair spills over my arm. I have tangled my fingers in it many times, but she is too deeply asleep to feel the pull.

Anatoli spends the short flight in silence, his attention riveted to his phone. He has dismissed Katya already as an inconsequential quirk of my capricious mind; a temporary diversion unworthy of his attention. A passing madness that will fade in time.

He is wrong. I know this already. But it is of no consequence to me if he likes her or if he approves of her so long as his antipathy does not become a problem for me. Perhaps it is best that he does not like her. Many of my enforcers are young, arrogant, cocky. They know better than to offend me, but lust makes fools of such men.

Anatoli dismisses Katya, and so he does not stare at her bare legs draped over my lap. His eyes do not linger on the swell of her breasts beneath the thin fabric of my shirt she still wears. He does not look at her with lust in his eyes. He does not covet something that belongs to me.

This means I do not have to kill him.

The plane touches down and still Katya does not stir. Already she has slept longer than Anatoli’s estimation; almost four hours. Perhaps I would worry, if I could not feel her breaths against my throat. Even and regular.

In this private airfield, there is only darkness outside. Only those in my employ waiting with my limo to convey me home—Anatoli’s instruction, probably, since I do not want to release Katya to the care of another even to drive myself—and Anatoli’s own car.

Anatoli shoves Katya’s suitcase, stuffed with everything she left within her motel room, into the hands of one of my enforcers. He barks a sharp order at the man to avert his eyes before can observe Katya in such a state of undress. So I know whatever private resentment Anatoli might harbor toward her, he will keep it to himself.

The air is cool. Chill bumps rise along Katya’s skin as I carry her down the stairs toward the limo.

Anatoli pinches the bridge of his nose. “There are sometimes side effects,” he says. “When she wakes, probably she will be confused, drowsy. Possibly she will be sick.”

Christ. “For how long?”

A shrug. “A day, maybe. She should not be left alone.”

I grunt my understanding. “Tell Giulio I have what I want.” But he did not give her to me, as I demanded, and so our bargain remains unfulfilled in my eyes. “Tell him he owes me for my inconvenience. I do not ever want to hear the name Russo in this city again. Or I will ruin him.” I own more of this city than the Russos do. It would be wise of them to keep to the shadows, to shrink themselves and their presence in this city which belongs to me and remain beneath my notice.

We are halfway to my home before Katya stirs with a sudden cascade of shivers, as if the fight she surrendered to the effects of the drug comes surging back. It doesn’t matter now if she fights. There is no one to hear except the driver who is mine; no one to see through the deeply-tinted windows. My home here is secure and isolated, well outside of the city proper. It is nearly a half a mile to the nearest neighboring house.

Which I also own.

Katya trembles violently as she struggles toward a true consciousness that continues to elude her. Like an infant, she cannot even lift her head where it rests against my shoulder. “Alexei?” Her voice is just a rasp in the darkness, hoarse—from her screaming, and from the dryness of her mouth.

“Shh, Katya. I have you.” I press one hand to her cheek, holding her head against my shoulder.

Her sigh puffs out against my throat. It sounds relieved. Confusion, Anatoli said—probably her memory is affected while she is still beneath the influence of the drug. Probably she does not even remember my instruction to call me Alyosha. So I don’t chide her for this, while she is still fragile.

Another vicious tremor. Her teeth chatter with it. “Something’s wrong with me,” she slurs.

What the fuck did Anatoli give her? I swallow down a sigh. It doesn’t matter now, when she is throwing it off at last in those helpless shudders that wrack her small frame. “What do you need?”

“Water,” she croaks in that parched voice. “Please. I’m so thirsty.”

Water I have. There is a refrigerator built into a compartment in the back. It is kept stocked with all manner of things. Vodka, champagne, beer—and yes, large glass bottles of water. I retrieve one of these, twist off the cap with one hand and hold the bottle to her dry lips.

She drinks greedily, the glass clinking against her teeth as she strives to wrestle her lax fingers around it. She is too clumsy with it; a thin trickle slides down her chin, wetting the front of her shirt. I catch the bottle before she can drop it. For a moment her eyes blink at me in the darkness. She seems briefly to recognize the difference between the shock of cold from the water and the nature of the shivers that afflict her. But not, I think, its import. This meaning escapes her still, too much for her drug-addled senses to piece together.

Her shoulders sink. Her head lolls once more against my shoulder, though she tries to tip her head back. “It’s too dark,” she whispers, and her voice doesn’t sound quite so raspy as it did. “The lamp.”

It’s well past midnight, and the windows are tinted. Only the barest hint of light from outside seeps through. There’s no lamp, but there is an overhead light. It operates with a remote control that sits in the cup holder beside me. The lowest setting will be enough, I think. Like this nightlight she says she sleeps with.

Her pupils are still massive. Like a drug addict mid-high. She stares for a moment at her surroundings, but I think she cannot make her brain make sense of them. At last she closes her eyes, as if the unfamiliar sight is something she cannot handle. “I think I’m sick,” she murmurs.