Page 64 of The Bratva’s Monster

He grabs my wrists suddenly, holding me tight. “Get out of this.”

I flinch for a half second, then I realize what he’s doing and I start pulling to get myself free. He holds me fast. His hands feel like iron shackles.

“Okay,” he says. “See where my fingers meet?”

He twists my wrist up so I can see his thumb touching his fingers. “Yeah.”

“Twist against that. Just turn your wrist in the direction of my fingers.”

I do and the grip breaks immediately. A barking laugh jumps out of me and I cover my mouth.

“Nice,” he says, giving me an approving smile. We spend a few more minutes with a few other techniques. Little things that might help me if the gun doesn’t work. All the while, I keep saying in my head, just need to get away. Don’t need to put him down…

And after he shows me the last thing, he steps back and regards me for a few seconds, then he says, “Keep the deadbolt on. If you see somebody so much as jiggle the handle, light them up through the door.”

“What if it’s not an Irkutsk on the other side? What if it’s you⁠—”

“I’ll announce myself beforehand.” He pauses, looking me over before turning away. “I'd better get going. Alex hasn’t heard from me all night and he’s probably already been updated about the convoy. He’s probably already got people out looking for me.”

I watch him silently as he grabs his jacket and his cellphone, shoving it into his pants pockets without turning it on. I feel like I need to say something to him, but I’m not sure what. I keep thinking about that kiss at the door and the taste of desperation on his lips. Did he mean it? Does it means he forgives me for not telling him about the baby? I don’t know. He hasn’t shown me any affection since that moment and just barely any kindness.

Except for the fact that he’s going to talk to Alex in the hopes of saving me… Or maybe just saving Gedeon’s reputation. I just don’t know.

“If all goes well,” he says, “I’ll be back by this afternoon. If not…” He stops what he’s doing and without looking at me, he says, “If I’m not back by sunset, leave. Do not look back, Liz.”

I have to bite my bottom lip to keep from objecting. From asking him if that was all? Wasn’t there any other contingency plan? Maybe I could go with him. Maybe I should be the one to talk to Alex. Surely, he’d hesitate if I told him I was pregnant.

I don’t get the chance to challenge him. He turns and leaves without so much as a goodbye. As soon as the door closes, I touch my lips. I can still feel his on mine, still taste his tongue, smell his scent, and feel his breath on my face.

My eyes start to tear up. Softly, even though he can’t hear me, I say, “Be safe.”

I’ve been sitting on this bed all morning, looking down at the gun and wondering if I’m actually going to have to use it. And if I do, what will it mean?

I’ve never been more distinctly aware of the fact that I’ve always been more adjacent to this life than part of it. Gedeon kept me out of so much of it. He never showed me how to shoot, never gave me special instructions for what I should do if he shouldn’t come home at some point, or if someone decided they were out to get me.

He didn’t even make it clear that one day, I might not be able to trust the men that he called his brothers. Everything I ever knew about this life before he died, I learned through gossip or accidentally.

Gedeon should have prepared me. I feel like I’m years behind things I need to know to survive in this world. Maybe if I knew more about guns and weapons, I could have defended myself better when they showed up at the house. Rikki could have been spared another gunshot wound.

Not that something like that seems to bother him. Getting hurt just seems to be nothing to him. Every time I see him bleed or get wounded somehow, part of me is afraid and the other part is strangely turned on.

I guess Yeva was right about boring guys.

I pick up the gun for the hundredth time, unload it and load it, just to make sure that I’ve got it down. It might be one person coming for me, but what do I do if there are more than one? What do I do if there’s a horde of them?

That thought elicits a chuckle. I might be on a hit list, but nobody’s sending more than one person after little old me.

I need a distraction.

My cellphone is in my bag, so I get up and dig it out. I’ve never been much for social media or doomscrolling, but maybe I can text Yeva. It’s early afternoon here, so it’s probably dinner time in Europe. Maybe just a few minutes of talking to her will take my mind off things.

I sit back on the bed and call her. The phone rings a few times, then it goes straight to voicemail. A second later, I get a text message. “On a date. Can I call you later?”

I purse my lips to the side at the message. There was no telling where I’ll be ‘later’. I text her back. “It’s okay. Have fun.” I start to add, See you later, but decide against it and send the message as is.

It takes a few seconds, but she texts back, “Everything okay?”

I start typing that everything is fine. After all, even if it wasn’t, there’s nothing she can do from Europe. Then I start to worry that there might not be another time to talk to my friend. She’s been the only person I can talk to for so long…