Page 6 of The Bratva’s Monster

“Five minutes.”

I hear him moving and the faint sound of the door unlocking. “Door’ll be open. I’m calling Marius.”

He hangs up. I must sound worse than I feel for him to immediately call the doc.

That’s fine. He’ll need to know it all when I get there. And after that, we’ll need a plan to strike back fast and hard.

4

LIZ

“There you are!” I say to Yeva as she walks up to the table. I stand, and she kisses me on the cheek in greeting. “I haven’t seen you in a while. How are you doing?”

She sighs and slides into the opposite side of the booth. This coffee shop sits right across from the mall and she’s already got a couple of shopping bags at her side. She’d said over the phone that she had to stop to return a few items. Guess she picked up some stuff too.

It’s been a while since Gedeon’s death, roughly six weeks, maybe. And this is the first time I’ve actually been out for something other than just necessities. It’s so nice to see Yeva again.

Yeva rolls her eyes at my question. “It’s been quite a month, let’s just say.” Her face shifts to instant sympathy and she adds, “I didn’t get to say so at the funeral, but I’m really sorry about Gedeon. I can’t imagine what you must be going through right now.”

I nod slowly. Despite our closeness, I never really told her about the bad parts of our marriage… Or about how lately I’ve been feeling a little guilty about not crying every night over him.

“How are you holding up?” she asks me.

“I’m managing,” I tell her. “As best as I can, you know. What about you? Your dad’s death⁠—”

“Okay, changed my mind. Let’s not spend this coffee date talking about tragedy, huh?” she says suddenly, her back stiffening. “It’s a beautiful day. It’s starting to get warm. Summer’s right around the corner. I’m dealing and so are you.”

I nod in agreement. Yeva has never been the type of woman to wallow in anything. She clears her throat and brushes some of her jet black hair behind her ear as she looks past me to the board above the barista’s head. “In fact, I’m in the mood for something different.”

I take a sip from my cup and say, “Try the lavender matcha. It’s really good.”

She wrinkles her nose. “Too grassy for me, thanks. Be right back.”

She goes to order her drink, leaving me to my thoughts for a few minutes. I’ve been thinking about how almost no one from the Bratva has been by to check in with me. Not Alex, nor his brother. I’d have thought that at least Rikki would come around.

Some of the Sixes have been coming around, however. Running errands for me. Keeping my lawn cut and fixing little things around the house. Through their little gossip circles, I’ve been hearing tidbits about what’s been going on in the Rostov world.

Slavik Sokolov is dead. That was a big one. With him gone, the war that was going on is over, I suppose, at least until another Pakhan takes over.

That’s not really the most concerning rumor. At first, I started hearing them talk about a rat among them. Somebody within the Bratva is sending information to the Irkutsks.

And then they stopped coming around. That’s when I knew something was wrong. I got my answer in a note left at my door one morning. In Russian was scrawled, Your husband died a rat.

I’ve been in shock about it ever since. I can’t believe that Gedeon would ever betray the brotherhood. Especially Rikki. For all that he was, he was a Rostov through and through.

Yeva comes back to the table, her cup in hand. As she slides into her chair, she says with a sigh, “Decided to be basic today. French Vanilla Mocha.”

I smile in spite of my inner thoughts. “Very basic. Especially for you.”

She smiles and sips her coffee. “You know, I’m glad you called to catch up. I’ve been toying with an idea lately and it’d be nice to have your opinion on it.”

“Okay. I’m all ears.”

She nods. “So, with everything that happened this last month, you know, with my father dying and drama with Alex and everything, I missed my window back to school. I was only supposed to be in town for spring break. Didn’t know I’d end up stuck here for months at a time. Anyway, I’ve been thinking about taking time off from school for a while. Maybe until summer or something like that.”

Yeva going to college has always been a struggle for her. She’d never admit it to me, but I don’t believe she ever really wanted to go in the first place. I think she was only doing it to appease her father.

“You mean like dropping out?” I ask. “Aren’t you supposed to be getting your Master's?”