Page 66 of Bratva Menace

Bowing my head slightly, I turned and walked out. With hurried strides, I did a loop so I would end up in one of the other rooms adjoining the kitchen, and peeked around the corner. I was now behind them, their backs to me—and luckily, still within earshot.

“-offered me his men,” Dimitri scoffed. “He doesn’t give a fuck if we find Lukyan. If anything, he’s glad this happened. Sergei got what he wanted without having to pay the price for it.”

“Do you think…I mean…is it plausible⁠—”

“That the woman who walked down the aisle was his stalker? Yes. I fucking do.”

Stalker was such an ugly word. I preferred the term, loyal and loving girlfriend.

“I warned him something like this could happen. That she was unpredictable and needed to be handled.”

Autumn ran a hand soothingly down his back. “I know. Lukyan did too. I think he was just too intrigued by her. She is an intriguing character, after all. Remember what I told you about our encounter? She’s completely fucking crazy, and you know your son.”

Ahhh. So she had told him about when we met. I hoped she said nice things. I wanted my father-in-law to like me, after all.

Papa D sighed, leaning forward to rub his temples. “Yes, I do. Maybe I should have told him about that.”

“Wouldn’t have made a difference, and you know it. She still managed to sneak into the house, even after we implemented those new security measures. Fear doesn’t hold her back. It excites her.” True. “The harder the challenge, the more determined she is to beat it.”

“Argh, what the fuck am I going to do?” He buried his head in his hands. “I have no idea where he is. Where she’s taken him. If he’s even still in the fucking country.”

“What about those fancy trackers you have?”

Papa D shook his head. “Tried that the second he went missing. The signal was dead. She must have known about it. Fuck! What if she kills him?”

I slammed a palm over my mouth to hide my gasp of shock and outrage. I would never.

“I don’t think she would.” Yes, girl. Have my back. “She’s obsessed with him. Infatuated with him. Lukyan is smart. He’ll play along with her delusions, and the first chance he gets, he’ll escape. Have faith in him. Until then, we need to do everything we can to help him. We’ll start with the venue. We have the plate of the car she used to drive away, don’t we?” Already burnt to a crisp. “We’ll track that, see where they stopped, and follow from there.”

Their words concerned me.

I had to make Lukyan want to stay with me. Had to make him see that he couldn’t live without me, like I couldn’t live without him. How could I do that? How could I convince him to stay? To never want to leave?

“Should I tell the rest of the family?” Dimitri asked, voice layered with uncertainty.

“I think you should,” Autumn answered honestly. “They’ll be furious if you don’t. But you need to make it clear they cannot intervene. If they were to show up here, looking for Lukyan, it could cause more trouble and put Sergei even more on edge. At least if they’re not here, they’re relatively safe. Our focus should be primarily on finding Lukyan’s stalker. If only we knew what she looked like.”

“You never saw her face?”

“No.” Autumn’s lips pursed with thought. “Just her eyes. Light brown, almost like honey. And her voice—oh my god.”

“What?” Dimitri’s eyes ping-ponged around the room, looking for danger. “What is it?”

“That’s where I know her from.” Fuck.

“Know who from? What are you talking about?”

“The maid!”

Time to go.

I spun on the balls of my feet and bolted. I ran past several other maids, all of them giving me curious looks as I made a beeline for the front door.

Lev was going to kill me. My cover was already blown, and it was all because I’d run into Autumn when I was sneaking into the Volkov estate—something Lev explicitly told me not to do.

Yelling came from behind me. I didn’t stop, flinging the door wide-open and running down the driveway as fast as I could. The guardhouse at the front of the property was manned, as usual, but the gate was open, a car sitting idle, waiting to drive through.

My bike was parked just outside. I only had to reach it.