Page 14 of Bratva Menace

I hadn’t even realized that I’d allowed myself to get swallowed up by my thoughts. I cleared my throat and straightened my spine. “You don’t think it’s a little weird? I mean, Grandfather had people trying to kill you every single week. Sometimes twice a week. And now…nothing. It’s been over a month since the last attempt. That’s strange, isn’t it?”

Father frowned, his expression thoughtful. “With your wedding to Anya Tarasova so close, I think he’s just being cautious. He can’t afford for this deal to go south. I don’t think he’s given up, by any means. I think he’s just waiting for the best moment to try again.”

While what he said made sense in theory, there was something still bugging me. Something that just wasn’t sitting right with me about the whole thing.

“You don’t agree?” he asked, cocking his head.

“I think he’s leading us into a false sense of security and plans to attack when we least expect it. Like when we land in Russia. Or on the plane. Or the night before we leave.”

His eyes widened slightly, which, for my father, was the equivalent of him passing out from shock. “I never considered that.”

“It’s a smart move,” Adrian added, his dark brows creased with worry. “Something you’d do yourself.”

“I would,” Father acknowledged with a slow tilt of his head. He leaned back in his chair and raised his arm, signaling for one of the men on security patrol.

Yakov nodded and shifted in his direction to come toward us. He was a cool dude. One of the men who’d come over from Russia to help replenish our numbers after Dominik’s attack.

We’d spent some time together. Sparring. Talking shit. Cracking jokes. I wouldn’t say I knew him exceptionally well, but I did know him well enough to know something wasn’t quite right about him.

I ran my eyes up and down his large, muscular frame. Dressed in smart casual black slacks and a black button-down shirt, he fit in easily—as if he were just another guest and not security. The harness strapped to his chest, filled with two handguns, was the only thing to give him away.

Yakov stopped on my father’s right side, bowing his head. “Sir?”

“I want an increase of patrols around the house for the next forty-eight hours. No one in or out of the estate. Double-manned gate shifts. Someone on video surveillance twenty-four hours a day.”

Yakov nodded. “Yes, sir.” He turned to walk away and then stopped. A chill ran down my spine at the same time as I saw a flash of silver. He moved.

“Watch out!”

The words had barely left my mouth when Autumn snapped into action, her hand whipping out fast as fucking lightning to grab Yakov by the wrist. Eyes wide in shock, Father looked down at the blade an inch away from piercing his throat and then back up at Yakov, betrayal deep in his rageful gaze.

Autumn yanked Yakov toward her at the same time she picked up the knife beside her plate and rammed it straight through his ear, right down to the hilt. Yakov made a sound that was a cross between a scream and a whimper before his entire body went slack, collapsing on the table.

She went right back to eating like nothing happened, shoving a handful of crackle into her mouth, the loud crunch, crunch, crunch echoing around us.

“Oh, fuck. Crackle is so good. Mm. I need the recipe for this,” she mumbled in between bites, totally casual, like she hadn’t just run a sharp instrument through someone’s brain.

Father blinked slowly and ran a hand down his front. “You can’t cook.”

“I can too,” she snapped, affronted.

“Two-minute noodles don’t count as cooking.”

“Well, you can make them yourself next time,” she snapped.

They began to argue with each other. Not in an angry or aggressive way, but in a fun, picking on each other kind of way. After being around them for a few months, it was easy to see that they liked arguing. They liked riling each other up. It was like some sort of sick, twisted form of foreplay for them. I knew that because, shortly after their bickering, they would always disappear, and wouldn’t come back for hours.

I looked around the yard, noting the fact that no one apart from the people at our table seemed to have noticed what just happened.

Autumn had killed Yakov so quickly and so effectively that none of the guests had even noticed.

My gaze swept through them all, one person after the next. Nothing. Not even a glance in our general direction. It was because I was looking around that I saw Denis, another of our soldiers, with his machine gun pointed at my father’s head.

I was moving before I’d even fully processed what was happening, leaping across the table and tackling him out of the way as a stream of bullets hit the air. Autumn was quick to respond, spinning around in her chair to throw a knife at Denis, but it didn’t matter. Half a dozen men—our men, men who were meant to protect us, watch out for us, lay down their lives for us—turned on us, all of them aiming their weapons at my father.

Chaos ensued. Time seemed to slow down as numerous things happened at once. People screamed, running in all directions the moment bullets started flying. Adrian picked up the table like it weighed nothing at all and slammed it down in front of us to act as a shield. Nikolai grabbed Tatiana and held her close, tucking her head into his chest and shielding her with his arm as he shoved people out of the way, trying to get her and their unborn children to safety.

Aleksandr and Drea went on the offensive, attacking the men. Illayana, Arturo, and Vincenzo grabbed Theodora and Lucian, making a run for the warehouse, knocking out whoever they needed to to get those kids to safety.