Page 62 of Bratva Sacrifice

A muted male voice whispers low, “Drop the books. Stand up slowly.”

I know that voice. It’s one of my father’s men; the one who was so frequently parked outside of my apartment. And he has a gun. The muzzle of a gun is pressed against my spine. In a bookstore. My heart races as I slowly unbend, leaving the books abandoned on the floor. I’m in the biography section. There’s no one close enough to notice what is happening. But I can see the top of someone’s head two rows over, in the mystery and thrillers section. My mouth opens—

“Scream and someone dies,” he warns, and the gun presses harder against my spine. “Maybe it’s you. Maybe it’s her.” From the corner of my eye, I see his head jerk to indicate the children’s section some distance to our left. There’s little girl sitting on the floor, her legs splayed out beneath the pink plaid skirt of her dress. She’s probably about four years old, and her head is bent over her lap as she flips through the pages of a pop-up book. Her mother is distracted, rooting through a diaper bag tucked underneath a stroller.

What kind of a monster threatens the life of a child?

I freeze. I whisper, “Alexei will—”

A whisper of a laugh. Biting and cruel. “Morozov won’t save you. He was stupid enough to leave you alone and unguarded.” Another jam of the gun into spine. “Walk,” he says. “To the right. Quiet. Casual. Or—”

“Someone dies,” I repeat dully.

“Good. You understand.” It’s a sneering reply.

It’s hard to be casual with a gun in your back. I’m deliberately slow about it, hoping desperately that I’ll have overstayed my allotted time. That Alexei will come barreling in. That his men will notice something’s gone wrong.

No one notices. We pass employees who don’t even glance in our direction. I think he’s using something to shield the gun from view of the public. His jacket, maybe, or a bag. No one has the slightest idea of what’s happening to me right in front of them. No one seems to know that they’re only inches away from death—if I do something stupid. Like scream.

My mind reels through possibilities as we proceed toward the back of the store. There’s an employee exit there, which I think leads out to a parking lot. It’s behind the stores with no easy path into the mall, so shoppers don’t tend to use it. But there could be security out there. Or police. Someone who will help me.

The door of the employee exit opens. The sunlight is almost blinding. There’s a black car waiting in the parking lot, engine running, and I know it’s meant for me. There’s only a handful of other cars, all parked. No people. No police. No mall security.

I can’t get into that car. Even if he shoots me.

Every muscle burns as I tear away from the gun at my back. My throat burns as I scream at the top of my lungs, “Alexei!”

“Stupid bitch!” A hand seizes my ponytail, yanking my head back so hard that my neck aches and tears spring to my eyes. And still I kick, bite, hit—until he slams the butt of the gun against my head, and with a burst of pain, everything goes dark.

Chapter Thirty One

Alexei

My mood is lethal, my rage unsettling to anyone unfortunate enough to be in my proximity. My staff and men avoid me as if I have become an unknown quantity, unpredictable and threatening. As if getting in my way bears with it the risk of experiencing the lash of my anger.

Possibly this is so. I cannot recall the last time I have felt like this. Maybe I never have.

Catalina’s desertion provokes a wrath that unlike anything else. This pure, cold anger persists in a way my occasional bouts of ire do not. It pulses in my head, claws at the inside of my ribs. A fatal wrath which cannot be tempered, for which there is no ease.

Now that she is gone, I am forced to admit to it. I have been weak. Soft. Too lax, too lenient. Forgiving and tolerant beyond what was ever wise. I sacrificed much to preserve her softness, to enjoy her sweetness.

And she spurns even those concessions I made for her against my better judgment. She makes a fool of me. No, it is worse even than that—I have made a fool of myself. For her. I gave her every tool she required to leave me of my own accord. Hundreds of dollars stuffed into her hand. More freedom than she deserved.

And at the first opportunity, she betrays me. She solicits my trust with her innocent face and her sweetness. And she stabs me in the fucking back. I gave to her this knife she twists into my flesh. Like a fucking fool, I hand her my heart and she tears it to pieces.

It will never fucking happen again. She will no longer sink her kitten-claws into me with impunity, no longer enjoy my indulgence, my patience with her sass and her tantrums and her smart fucking mouth. Too often I have humored her, spoiled her. Allowed her in my generosity to pretend an agency that was never hers.

When I find her, she will learn better.

But first I need to fucking find her.

The bookstore has security cameras only at the entrance and over the registers. They are more concerned about their staff stealing cash than patrons stealing books. There is only the briefest of glimpses of her upon the security feed as she enters the store. She casts a long look over her shoulder at my men who—at my fucking instruction—wait for her outside. So she does not feel so watched, her every movement observed and reported on.

She disappears into the bookshelves. And then she disappears from my fucking life. No one took note of her as she browsed. She caused no disturbance, did nothing to draw attention to herself. It is only when she does not emerge again in her allotted time that my men grow suspicious and alert me to this.

The back door through which she escaped leads only to a parking lot where there are no security cameras at all. With hundreds of dollars in untraceable cash in her pocket and my attention diverted—because I fucking trusted her—she flees undetected. She is not seen again on any camera. She has disappeared into the ether just as she did when first she fled from her family.

And I have given her the tools she needs to hide herself from me. Her sole mistake—texting her dead brother’s burner phone—is one she will not make again.