Page 113 of Bratva and Betrayal: Kirill

I signal for us to get back to the car. “I have to pick up Violet.”

Kirill: Where the fuck are you?

I grin, drop the phone into my purse and keep walking.

Then the phone rings. He’s so freaked he can’t type. I stare at it and smile wider.

“Can Mr. Volkov track my car?” I ask the driver when I get into the backseat.

“Yes,” the driver says. “And he can send a drone this way, too.”

“Weaponized ones,” the guard adds.

Yikes…

“Take me to Violet’s school.” I buckle myself in. “He’ll see that and calm down.”

I hope.

We cross town quickly, just in time to watch Violet skip out of the school’s main double doors. I smile as she changes the moment she spots my car. She breaks out into an all-out run toward it. Toward me. I get out, and she leaps into my arms.

“Mommy!” Her warm body feels so good.

I just needed this. And her father having his way with me at night. I hope I didn’t screw that up.

In the car, Violet chats about her day, the story the teacher read, and how a little girl named Emily, a new student, was crying to go home.

“She went into the bathroom and tried to flush her shoes down the toilet so they had to call her mommy and take her home.”

I hide a laugh and don’t want to encourage that behavior. But Violet loves school, and I doubt she’d try that.

“I went in there to make her feel better,” Violet adds.

This catches my attention. “You did? Where was your teacher?”

“Emily is my new best friend,” she says in her demanding little way. “She needed me. Like you needed me when you were sad.”

That freaking breaks my heart.

“I’m proud of you,” I say, holding her as close as I can in her booster seat. “You should help friends who need it.”

She goes on to tell me she didn’t like today’s snack, and that she’s sooooo hungry. Then she just turns toward the window and kicks her feet, watching the city pass us like she’s not a Bratva princess.

We reach our block, and when we turn into the driveway, my stomach drops seeing Kirill standing behind the gate. He tracked my car all right. Behind him are men. Lots of them.

My heart starts to pound. “What is that?”

“The entire brotherhood,” the driver says.

“We are so dead,” my guard mutters into his hand.

“No. I’ll tell Kirill I instructed you to take a detour.”

The guard and driver glare at each other, having some kind of conversation with their eyes. Maybe a death pact, sending Morse code messages to family members should only one of them make it out alive.

The gate to Iron Keep opens, and we drive through. Seeing Kirill standing there dressed in the clothes he wears at night to be pakhan and all his men behind him has me sweating, too.

“Mommy, why does Daddy look mad?” Violet asks.