Page 18 of Bratva Menace

I was about halfway through my third one when I noticed how quiet the room had gotten. Looking up, my mouth overflowing with food, I glanced around.

Everyone was looking at me with surprised, wide-eyed expressions, like they’d been stunned into complete silence.

Well, everyone except my father. He had the beginnings of a knowing smirk on his lips, eyes alight with glee. If I had to pick a saying for that particular expression, it’d have to be, that’s my boy.

But maybe that was just wishful thinking. What I hoped he was thinking.

“What?” I mumbled. “Do I have food on my face or something?” I wiped my lips with the back of my hand. Nothing.

“How…how did you do that?” Arturo asked, bewilderment in his voice.

“Do what, Arty?” I reached across the table and plucked a few fries from a bowl Flora had placed down, shoveling them into my mouth.

“You just spouted off a bunch of random facts about some soldiers like you were reading a goddamn grocery list. How did you remember all of that?”

I shrugged. “I pay attention.” Despite what you all think.

“Why would they do this?” Aleksandr asked no one in particular. “They were here for over six months, with no indication they were under Sergei’s control. What changed?”

“They could have been sleepers,” I suggested in between bites. “You know, planted within our ranks with the distinct purpose of gaining our trust so that when we least expected it, they could attack and catch us completely off guard. Grandfather must have gotten fed up with the failed attempts from all those fancy assassins, and in a last-ditch effort to get what he wanted—our darling father’s imminent demise—he activated his sleeper soldiers and told them to kill him.”

I’d been thinking about it a lot since the whole thing went down. He could have left those sleeper soldiers in our ranks for years, only telling them to act when he desperately needed them to. I had a feeling that, in his mind, he had firmly believed his bounty on my father would have been more than enough to entice the best assassins in the world to end his life. Then, with Father gone and Aleksandr in charge, Grandfather could keep his sleepers in our ranks and have them monitoring our every move and reporting back to him. Like little fucking spies.

Illayana thumped the side of her closed fist down onto the table. “That old fucking bastard,” she growled. “He not only put a hit out on Father, but he ruined your going-away party! I say fuck him. Let him find someone else to marry Anya Tarasova. We shouldn’t lift a goddamn finger to help him.”

Aleksandr, Nikolai, Father, and I all exchanged an awkward look with one another.

Illayana didn’t know the real—well, the only—reason the marriage with Anya was going through. She didn’t know Grandfather had threatened her. Forced us into it. Hadn’t given us any choice in the matter.

Her spine snapped straight. She narrowed her eyes in suspicion. “What?” she asked, looking between us.

“What, what?” I held up one of my mini burgers, offering it to her in an attempt to distract her. “Have you tried these? They’re orgasmic⁠—”

She slapped it out of my hand.

I gasped. “Illayana!”

“You lot just shared a look. What was it for?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Aleksandr cleared his throat, sitting up a little straighter. “Now, we need to⁠—”

Three.

“—come up with⁠—”

Two.

“—some sort of⁠—”

One.

The sound of a chair scraping across the ground echoed throughout the kitchen, like nails on a chalkboard. Illayana stood, hands placed firmly on the table in front of her, a dark, murderous look in her eyes.

“That’s bullshit,” she hissed. “You guys are hiding something. I know that look. It’s your don’t tell Illayana look.”

“Paranoid much,” I scoffed under my breath, even though she was totally right.

“What was that?” she snapped.