Page 85 of The Bratva’s Monster

I stopped him. I stopped the car.

The driver’s side door opens and he stumbles out. I scramble to the other side to escape before he can get to me, but it’s too late. The moment I touch the door handle, he’s grabbing my ankle and pulling me out.

“Stupid bitch,” he grumbles as he grabs me around my waist and lifts me out of the car. “You are going to pay for that.”

My vision starts to clear and I see I’m being half carried and half dragged down the street toward a group of men standing outside a bar. They’re all looking at us like they’ve been waiting for us to arrive.

“What the hell is going on?” I hear one of them say as we get close. Josef cuts him off.

“I’m Josef Kiselev,” he says. “You know my brother, Stefan?”

A round of nods and one of them even says yes aloud.

“Let me in. I need cover.”

They step out of the way and in we go. The darkness engulfs me for a second, but I already pick up the smell of stale beer. An Irkutsk bar. Of course.

He pauses to shout at the bartender in Russian and I take my moment, swinging my legs and kicking him in the shin. He winces, but he keeps a strong hold on me. I swing my arms back, catching him in his chin with my elbow.

He lets me go but then grabs me by my hair and pulls out his gun, pressing it to my temple. “Enough, already,” he yells. “Dammit!”

“You got yourself a handful.” The bartender laughs. “Can you handle all that woman by yourself, Iosifchik?”

A few others laugh at him poking fun at him, and clearly, Josef is not amused by being called a diminutive of his name. “I can handle her just fine,” he says through clenched teeth. “Just keep me covered while I take care of business.”

“You’ve got it,” he says, and Josef pushes me forward, toward a stairwell in the far corner of the room.

We go up a flight up stairs to a hallway of doors. He pushes me past that. “Keep going.”

“Josef? Is that you?” He pauses as an older woman comes walking down the hallway, a headful of white hair and a round, grandmotherly face. She speaks Russian in a soft voice that reminds me of my grandmother’s baklava.

Josef sighs as she walks up to him. “Hey, Grandmother,” he returns in Russian. “Business doing well?”

“It is.” I see her eyes dart down to the gun, then to me, and for just a second, I think that I might have an ally. It’s only a second, though, because she says, “You’re in trouble again, hmm?”

“Just a little. Could you keep an eye out for me?”

“Of course, little one.” She pinches his cheeks. “Just make it fast. You know I’ve got clients.”

And she walks away. As matronly as she seemed, I can see she’s babushka in name only. As she walks away, I notice the tattoos peeking out from the short sleeves of her dress and along the back of her neck.

Josef yanks me away and toward the door marked “Roof”, and my heart drops. He’s going to just toss me over the side. I’d better think fast.

“You can’t do this,” I say as we walk up the steps. “I’m the wife of a Rostov. If you kill me⁠—”

“Your husband is dead and your people think you’re a traitor,” he says. “No one’s coming for you.”

My heart skips a beat as I realize that he’s clearly lying. He wouldn’t have driven like a lunatic if no one was following him. Maybe Rikki, or even Alex, lived and he’s on his way. We get to the top and he reaches around me to push the door open. “Move,” he says as he pokes the gun in my back.

We step out onto the windy roof and he nudges me to the right, past a collection of large metal boxes that house the air conditioning. “What does killing me get you?” I ask him.

“What are you talking about?”

“I can’t be that valuable to you. Not more than one of Alex Molotov’s soldiers. I’m not even his blood.”

He pushes my shoulder and I stumble forward a little. “For your information, it wasn’t supposed to work out like this. None of this is going according to plan.” He pauses, breathing so heavily that I can feel his breath on the back of my neck. “Stefan… Stefan should have taken the cue. The minute he found out about your husband…” He pushes me and says, “Turn around and get your hands up.”

I do and I notice that they’re shaking. The wind swirls around me and brings a chill that runs up my spine.