Page 12 of Bratva and Betrayal: Kirill

“It’s okay, Jessica,” the nurse murmurs. “I’ve got you.”

There’s movement around me, more voices, but they blur together. My focus narrows to the steady rhythm of my own breathing, the hum still vibrating faintly in my chest.

The world softens at the edges, colors bleeding into one another as the tension drains from my body.

“It’s all right.” Nurse Lila comforts me, her voice closer now since she’s holding me. “I’ll call Elodie. You’ll be fine. Maybe she’ll bring you across the courtyard to the spa.”

“Spa…”

Something pricks my arm. I barely feel it. Gentle hands lift me onto something soft. The gurney.

Transport, they call it.

I glance down and see the needle in my arm. Slowly the room slips away, quiet and mercifully dark.

Chapter 3

Kirill

Scottsdale, Arizona is too hot, too dry, too clean for the kind of work I do. Chicago’s cold, raw temperatures are perfect for the ice in my veins.

My grandfather sat me on his knee and told me Russians are part polar bears. That was a fucking joke for a seven-year-old, but the way this desert air feels wrong in my lungs, I can be convinced I have polar bear DNA somewhere in my body.

I’m fucking melting in this heat. And getting angrier by the second.

I’ve been livid for two weeks since I got that lawyer to talk. The trail leading us here to Arizona and to a Jessica Parker didn’t take five years to uncover, but we still chased more ghosts to get here.

“Marlowe Rehab,” I mutter to myself, leaning against the rental SUV.

The signage is almost intentionally vague. No hint of the type of illnesses or damage they treat.

Heat shimmers above the pavement. I’m not immune to the beauty here. If this were a photo of mountains with pale gold sunlight pouring over the canyons, I’d enjoy it. All I see is how easy it is for a person to disappear here. Simply fade away and become someone else.

Jessica Parker.

The name sits on my tongue like a bitter pill I refuse to swallow.

Drago strides away from the administrative office, looking satisfied. He got someone to talk, as usual. It’s what he’s good at. He’s been at my side for years. His quiet violence has made him indispensable to me long before he married my sister and became family.

“It’s confirmed,” he says, standing at my shoulder with his familiar steadiness. “Marlowe Corp LLC has a resident by the name Jessica Parker that matches Sandrine’s description. But she’s only been here for the last three months.”

Three months.

This resort carved into the desert with its low buildings, wide paths lined with lush greenery, and water features is where Sandrine has been.

My jaw tightens until it aches.

“Residences are in those buildings. Rehab wing is to the left,” Drago continues, nodding subtly toward a structure set slightly apart. “Spa complex on the right.”

“Spa,” I mutter to myself.

I push away from the car and stride forward, my shoes striking the pavement in a rhythm that matches the pulse building at the base of my skull. My bratoks are already in place. I brought my whole fucking force to bring the runaway queen home to Iron Keep, the Volkov family mansion.

Drago and I cut across a stretch of sunlit stone toward the spa building. As we near it, my fingers flex, remembering the feel of Sandrine’s wrist beneath them, the way she used to let me be who I needed to be with her in bed. Like no other woman had.

Five years.

All that time apart and she’s finally somewhere close, breathing the same desert air as me. Only she’s using a different name.