Page 39 of The Bratva’s Monster

She slaps me, and I grab her by the hair, yanking her head back to slice her throat open…

Then my hand freezes. I’m holding the knife against her skin as she shakes in my arms, eyes wide as she stares up at me.

And I’m so fucking hard. My dick presses hard against the zipper of my pants, ready to burst out.

Take her. Fuck the shit out of her. Make her… make… her…

Stone cold rushes through me and I’m acutely aware that the reins of my anger have almost gotten away from me. I’m barreling off into the darkness, past the point of absolutely no return.

What the fuck…?

I let her go and drop the knife. She stumbles back, her hand going back over her mouth as the ocean in her eyes floods over and rolls down her face. The last time I almost completely lost control, I was with her. Then it was sex. But this… what is happening to me?

I look away from her, down at the gleaming blade at my feet. “Go back to bed,” I say to her. “I’ll finish up here and let myself out.”

She doesn’t move for a few moments. She just stands there, watching me as she sobs, waiting for me to move. Finally, she takes a step back… then another… and then she’s out of the living room and rushing away up the stairs. I lift my head just in time to see the soft white of her nightgown as it disappears into the dark hall upstairs.

Alex would praise me for killing her… probably. For all the betraying that he is sure that she’s done, those things that I just don’t know anymore.

The sound of soft whimpering from the kitchen catches my attention. Right. I still have work to do.

I pick up the knife and head back to my victim…

16

LIZ

Somehow, I slept last night, but it didn’t happen until hours later.

With the door closed and a pillow over my head, I could still hear screaming coming from my kitchen as the family monster devoured his latest victim. It finally ended at the first signs of dawn and I was able to drop off into a dreamless sleep.

Now I’m awake and it almost feels like the whole night was just a nightmare. I’ve been sitting here in bed, trying to reconcile what I saw last night with what I thought I understood about Rikki.

I’ve known him for as long as I knew Gedeon. For all the rumors about how brutal he can be, I’ve never actually seen it for myself before last night. I feel stupid for thinking that he was anything other than the monster that even he says he is.

I run a hand over my face, realizing that I can’t stay in bed forever. There’s probably a grand mess left for me to take care of downstairs. I might as well get started on cleaning it up.

It occurs to me that I have no idea how to clean blood from wood or carpet, let alone how to get rid of the bodies (or pieces of bodies). I shudder to think of what’s waiting for me when I get to the kitchen. Whatever’s left of the one Rikki was working on… What I saw last night will live in my nightmares for the rest of my life.

I don’t remember the name of the guy that Gedeon used to call. I’d have to look through his computer, maybe, to find the number. I never got his phone back after he died, so…

I get out of bed and wrap a robe around me. I’m not planning on ruining my nightgown by cleaning any of whatever’s down there up, but I at least want to survey the damage. If it’s too much, then I’ll have to find the Bratva clean up guy, I guess.

I leave my bedroom and immediately hear talking downstairs. Cautiously, I walk to the landing and look down. Two men are standing around my door, tools by their feet as they examine the splinters hanging from the frame.

They’re… fixing my door? I step to the railing. “Excuse me?”

The talking stops and they all look up at me. One of them has long gray hair pulled back into a ponytail and glasses and looks up at me. I immediately notice that his eyes are two different colors. He smiles at me and steps forward.

“Excuse us, Mrs. Pavlova,” he says. “We didn’t mean to wake you with all the noise.”

“Who are you? What are you doing here?”

“Marius Volkov, ma’am,” he says. “Rikki sent me over to clean up the mess that was left last night.”

My mouth drops open. I’m speechless.

“We already took care of the cleanup in the kitchen and living room areas,” he goes on. “One of my guys is out back repairing the broken window. We shouldn’t be too much longer.”