Page 34 of The Bratva’s Monster

He sighs and takes a drink. “Gedeon was the only brigadier who knew where all the stash houses were, Rikki. Other than us, he’s the only one who could tell the Irkutsks where to go. What that means is that at this moment, we’ve got more evidence that she’s the rat than not. I need you to give me one reason why I shouldn’t skip the bullshit and send you over to take her out right now.”

I don’t have a reason. If it were me, I probably would have killed her by now. But standing here under the canopy of my brother’s anger, I can’t help but see the way she looked at me before I left. Those bright blue eyes and the curve of her full lips. The way she felt when I was inside her…

I can only pull from my father and what he would say in this situation. He lived and died by very few rules, but there was one that he drilled into our heads from day one.

“If you’re wrong, then you’ll have killed an innocent,” I say to him. “And we don’t kill innocents.”

That cuts through the ice in his eyes. He looks away, down at his glass, taking a moment.

“Find out,” he says. “And I mean soon, Rikki. Everything depends on it.”

I nod, then I leave the parlor. One way or another, I need to get close enough to Liz fast, or else we’ll all be fucked.

14

LIZ

Ican’t sleep.

Rikki’s visit this afternoon has thrown me off completely. My mind has been spinning ever since.

I’ll say this much about him. He’s a through and through Bratva in the way of how much nerve he’s got. I would think that he would be ashamed of what happened between us. Or maybe he might feel like it was some kind of betrayal… which, I suppose, it is. I do feel a little like I cheated on Gedeon. Particularly since Gedeon never fucked me nearly as good as Rikki did in the four years we were together. Not that he was bad at it or anything, he just…

God, what am I thinking? Am I really comparing them now?

I roll over in the darkness of my bedroom and confront the empty side of the bed. The sheets don’t really smell like him anymore. The night he left, I put my sheets in the wash and did laundry to keep my mind occupied while he was away, so whatever scent clung to them is mostly gone. If I close my eyes and take a deep breath, I can pick up whiffs of it, but…

That’s probably for the best that I can’t smell him much in here anymore. I’ve been dealing with his scent all day in his office while going through his things.

So far, all I’ve found is a pattern with his money. Losses and gains, mostly, and a few names here and there, most of whom I don’t know. But I know Stefan and I saw his name a few times on some of the notes.

Tomorrow, I’m going to go through the computer. I don’t think Gedeon would be stupid enough to put anything there, but⁠—

The faint sound of glass breaking stops my thoughts. That sounded close. Too close. Was that somewhere inside the house?

I sit up and listen. We live on a pretty busy street, apartments on both sides, traffic less than a quarter of a mile’s walk away from the front door. I can’t count the number of times that I’ve heard things on the street that sounded like they were happening right next to my bed.

Still… I should check it out. It’s not like I can sleep anyway.

I get out of bed and stop. Rikki had said that if I needed anything, I should call him. And he was pretty clear when he said anything.

This, though. If there’s nothing down there, he might take it like a booty call. I glance at my phone sitting on the nightstand by my bed. The lock screen shows that it’s just after midnight.

Fuck it. I’d rather he come over thinking he’s going to get laid than not at all. I pick up my phone and dial his number.

It rings twice before he picks up and his drowsy, half-asleep voice comes over the line. “Hello?”

“Hi. Um, Rikki? It’s Liz.”

He sighs and suddenly, I’m picturing him lying on his bed, no shirt, long auburn waves of hair cascading over his shoulders. “Liz. It’s late. Is everything okay?”

“I don’t think so,” I say. “I thought I heard⁠—”

A bang echoes from somewhere downstairs, like a door slamming shut or open. Oh, shit.

“S-Somebody’s in the house,” I whisper. “I need you to come over.”

He pauses, then, “What?”