Page 140 of Bratva Menace

“Lower your weapons! Don’t shoot!” Lukyan called out from behind me.

I rushed past Aleksandr, Drea, and Nikolai on my left, Illayana and Arturo on my right. They let me go, their eyes following me as I ran away.

“Stop! Baby, stop! Just wait!”

I ignored Lukyan, jumping into one of the cars at the front of the property. The keys were still inside. I started the engine and shifted it into gear.

Lukyan’s hands slammed down on the hood of the car. He breathed heavily, eyes never leaving mine. “Wait. Don’t go. Stay with me. It’s okay. It will all be okay.”

A part of me appreciated his words. The fact that he was trying to comfort me. But another part—the part of me riddled with guilt and anguish—squashed it in an instant. “No, it’s not okay. And it never will be.” I punched my foot on the accelerator and went zooming backward.

“NO! Lyla!” Lukyan screamed.

I spun the wheel and sped off into the darkness.

CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE

LUKYAN VOLKOV

Three months later

“Where is she?” I roared into the face of the man at my feet, veins popping out of the side of my neck.

He shrank back, dark brown eyes shrouded in fear. “I don’t know! I swear to God, I don’t know!”

I held up the six-by-nine photograph again so he could see it clearly. “Lyla Voznesensky. She’s a client of yours, isn’t she? No. Don’t answer that. It was a rhetorical question because I already know she is. She came to you a few weeks ago, and now, I want to know where she is.”

“I already told you! I have no idea where she is!”

I stabbed him in the shoulder. He screamed—a loud, ear-piercing sound that echoed around the darkened room of his office in downtown Las Vegas. “I don’t believe you,” I snarled.

Rodrick Peterson was one of the go-to people for creating new identities. For the past three months, I’d been searching for Lyla, looking under every nook and cranny for even the slightest hint of where she could be hiding. And so far, I’d found fucking nothing. It was like she’d poofed. Disappeared into thin fucking air.

After the events that transpired at my grandfather’s estate in Russia, things had been…chaotic, to say the least. My father’s injuries had been severe. Critical. He’d been airlifted from the grounds and rushed straight to hospital. Aleksandr and Nikolai remained behind to deal with the fallout from the bloodbath while Illayana, Autumn, and I went with Father. After hours and hours of surgery and countless blood transfusions, the doctors managed to pull him back from the brink of death.

It was a shock. Witnessing the gunshot firsthand, seeing with my own eyes how much blood he’d lost…I’d resigned myself to the fact that he wouldn’t make it. Had tried my hardest to brace myself for the inevitable pain and anguish that would succumb me should he die.

Most people wouldn’t have survived a straight shot to the chest like that.

But my father wasn’t just anyone.

He was the toughest, baddest, most resilient fucker I’d ever known.

If anyone was ever going to tell the Grim Reaper to fuck off, it would be him.

While we’d been in hospital with him, Aleksandr and Nikolai were sorting shit out back at Sergei’s. It turned out, you couldn’t have a full-blown shootout in your backyard without attracting some sort of attention.

The law enforcement kind of attention.

Lucky for us, Sergei had the local police department in his back pocket—easy to do when you were one of the most powerful and influential men in Russia. Business might have been a little rocky, but my grandfather was always efficient at making sure he had the authorities right where he wanted them.

Cops came. It was unavoidable. But with a few words from Aleksandr and some cash, they turned and went on their merry way with a word of warning to clean up the mess quickly.

From there, things moved swiftly, and the days and weeks that followed passed by in a blur. Aleksandr remained in Russia for two months to handle affairs while Father was recovering, and Drea, Illayana, Arturo, Nikolai, and Tatiana returned home to keep on top of things there. Once Father was on the mend, he, Autumn, and Aleksandr came back to Vegas.

There was no funeral for Sergei. No wake where people talked about how much they would miss him and what a great life he had led.

The bastard didn’t deserve it.