Page 18 of Bratva and Betrayal: Kirill

The world tilts as I’m lifted next, my feet leaving the ground for a second before I’m thrown into the SUV. The arm of a captain’s chair slams into my side, knocking the breath from my lungs. Sharp pain blooms in my hip immediately. There’s no time to process it before Elodie is shoved in after me, landing just as hard in the seat next to me.

The door begins to close, the strip of sunlight narrowing, cutting us off from the world.

The man whose voice tickled something inside my soul catches the door with his gloved hand and climbs in. He sits in a rear-facing seat behind the other masked man who sits in the front passenger seat.

Gravelly man stays rigid and watchful. For just a second, I see the chaos behind his blue eyes, glowing through the holes in his mask.

Then all the locks engage.

“Go,” he hisses. “Airport.”

Airport?

Chapter 5

Kirill

The rental SUV’s engine roars into gear, the cheap frame shuddering as we lurch forward. I don’t feel like myself all of a sudden. Like I’ve stepped outside my own body, and I’m watching this unfold from a distance.

The scent of vanilla hits me first. It’s soft, but it manages to cut through gas fumes and mold beneath the rubber floor mats.

Sandrine.

Her smell threads through the air like the memory I refused to forget. It’s undeniable, and it lodges in my lungs with the force of recognition so absolute it borders on pain.

My wife.

There’s no doubt. This is her. My body knows it before my mind can catch up. My soul knows the cadence of her breath even as it comes fast and panicked. I know the subtle shift in her weight as she struggles against one of my guards who is holding her from behind in the third row.

It kills me to see a man touch her. But I don’t object. Her kind of betrayal deserves nothing but punishment.

I sit behind the front passenger’s seat, my mask still in place. My hands shake in a restless storm that builds beneath my skin.

In the two captain’s chairs, Sandrine sits in one. Her friend in the other. Or cousin. I never knew she had a cousin. Maybe it’s another lie. Sandrine shakes, but doesn’t struggle. The other woman, the brunette, the extra complication I hadn’t planned for, is giving the guy holding her in that seat from the third row a fight, her movements sharp and frantic.

Drago sits in the front seat, directly behind me. He turns his masked face just enough that his voice reaches me without carrying. “What do we do with the extra cargo?”

“We’ll dump her at the airport,” I reply, my gaze never leaving Sandrine. I lift my hand and snap my fingers at her cousin. “Brunette. Give me your license.”

“Fuck off,” she fires back immediately, her chin lifting despite the fear flickering in her eyes.

“Your defiance might be considered admirable under different circumstances.” I smile behind the mask.

Then I do something that settles like acid in my gut. I raise my gun and press it to Sandrine’s temple.

“Give me your license, brunette,” I repeat, softer now, letting the threat speak for itself. “Please.”

Her gaze snaps to Sandrine, then back to me, as she tries to understand the logic of what’s happening.

Did your cousin not tell you she’s married to a dangerous Bratva heir who she ran away from five years ago?

After one of my men lets go of her arms, the brunette releases a frustrated breath. She fumbles through her purse. After seconds of digging, she yanks out her wallet and shoves the card toward me. I take it without looking away from Sandrine for a moment.

“Run this,” I tell Drago.

He takes it from me, already pulling out a device to read the strip. “Elodie Vale,” he says the name on the license.

The name means nothing. But… Vale. There’s a Vale Syndicate north of here. I push that away.