Page 36 of The Bratva’s Monster

A brief flash of headlights from the street crosses the front window. They don’t notice. They’re still arguing.

I hope that’s Rikki… but whether it is or isn’t, I can’t wait for them to decide to kill me.

I kick the one holding me in the shin. He grunts and his hold loosens, but he’s still got me, so I try again, my heel barely clipping it as he moves his leg.

“Shit,” he swears. “Hey! Stop that!”

The first one steps forward and grabs me by the face, pulling it up to the light. “You want to live through this? Huh? Stay still and stay quiet.”

I stare at him, trying to discern from his eyes whether I know this man. I don’t. I don’t even know his voice.

I spit in his face and it flies into his eyes. He flinches and releases me, wiping at his mask before finally taking it off, revealing a headful of thick, dark hair, a crooked nose, and nearly black eyes. He wipes his face with one gloved hand and stares at me. Then, with a swiping arc of his arm, he backhands me hard across the face.

“Fuck this bitch,” he growls. As I look back at him, my bottom lip throbs and the tang of blood fills my mouth. He looks over my head at the guy holding me and says, “Put her on the couch. I’m ending this shit right here.”

I’m dragged into the living room and thrown on the couch and I see him pull a gun out of his belt.

“Hey,” the second guy says, “He said no bloodshed.”

“Fuck him and fuck this bitch.” He cocks the gun.

A crash happens behind me and I flinch, instinctively ducking. The one with the gun looks up and his face goes to slate.

“Oh, shit—” He raises his gun and gets one shot off, then his eyes widen and his hand shakes. The next thing I know, a blur rushes around the couch and grabs his arm, lifting it up as another shot rings out into the ceiling.

It’s Rikki. He towers over my assailant like a wall, his silhouette in the dark monstrous in both size and menace. He got the man’s arm in one hand and his throat in the other. The yell that he started has been cut off and replaced with a forced strangling noise.

He doesn’t say a word. He just stares down at him, a snarl on his face as his hands tighten around his neck. The strangled noise gets more airy like a candle being snuffed out.

Then I hear bones breaking, snapping like a bundle of twigs, then his body goes limp. Rikki lets him drop to the floor.

The other man just stands by, watching all this happen, eyes like white beacons under his ski mask. His arms start shaking as Rikki lifts his eyes to him.

“P-Please,” he begs. “We didn’t… I didn’t mean… please.”

“Vy, Bratstvo?” Rikki says, his rich baritone shaking the room.

“I… I… Please, let me leave.”

He sighs, and in the darkness I can see the shoulders of his silhouette rise and fall. “Are you all right?” Even though he’s not looking at me, I know he’s asking it to me.

“Y-Yes,” I say.

“Did they hurt you?”

“No, not-not badly. I’m fine.”

He doesn’t turn to me. He’s still staring at the whimpering man in the corner. “Your lip is bleeding.”

“The first one slapped me. It’s really nothing.”

He doesn’t respond. I think he’s trying to decide what to do with the whimpering bastard in the corner. Finally, he says, “They picked the wrong house to steal from.”

I sit up a little, realizing that he thinks this is just some home invasion by some local punks. Before I can give it any real thought, the words just come out. “They want something from me… from Gedeon. I-I think somebody sent them.”

He says nothing. He’s just a silent beast standing in my living room, but I can feel the heat coming off him, a primal rage that’s been unlocked. He looks away finally, turning his eyes to me. They shine in the dim light of the room.

“Are you sure?”