Page 158 of The Lazarov Bratva

“Oh.” Andrev’s voice drops low. “He told you about Ivan? I’m so, so sorry.”

My world screeches to a halt. “What?”

“It was terrible, but we can take comfort that Ivan’s death was quick. Please try and focus on that. Nastja, though… we all hope she didn’t suffer much.”

13

ALENA

“Dead? Ivan and Nastja are dead?”

No. No, no, no!

That can’t be true.

There’s no way something so horrible can be true, can it?

Andrev’s face twists into a look of confusion, and his lips move, but the words don’t reach my ears. There’s nothing but a roaring silence as tendrils of grief snap in my mind. Then he looks over my shoulder and his lips continue to move, but my focus is no longer on him.

My flight instinct has been triggered.

I can’t make sense of this.

I have to get away.

Twisting my body right, then left, I slip out of Andrev’s grip and bolt away from him without a second thought, and I don’t stop running. My bare feet slap down on carpet, wood, and stone alike, but none of the temperature or texture differences halt my path.

The walls fly past as I sprint faster than I’ve ever run before, fueled by shock and a primal desire to get out from these walls and away from these people.

I take the back stairs, dodging any concerned security guards who try to block my path. My feet stumble, traversing a blurred world as the tears continue to build in my eyes and pour down my cheeks. I run down the hall, down the winding back stairs, and through the kitchen until the cool afternoon air closes around me when I sprint into the garden.

The bite of gravel and paving stone beneath my bare feet isn’t enough to stop me, and with a lungful of crisp, fresh air, I keep running.

I need to get away.

Away from the blood and the death.

Away from the house and the suffocating walls, away from Andrev and Kristof, away from all the guards who loom over my every move.

Over and over, like a record caught on a scratch, the doctor’s pleasant smile flashes in my mind. It repeats over and over, a polite flicker of warmth as he says goodbye, and then the horrible way his smile falters as Kristof shoots him in the back.

Then the pained grimace as recognition gave way to death and he folded forward like a wet paper bag. The wet schuck sound as his body fell forward rings in my ears, and I can’t stop picturing him dead. The man who, not twenty minutes earlier, had been promising me a healthy life moving forward and giving me so much advice on how to care for my baby.

Now he’s dead in the entranceway, being rolled up in a rug like he means nothing. He did nothing wrong. Surely, he was innocent.

A sob tears past my wet lips as I run, but it doesn’t make me stop. Branches and twigs from the hedge catch and pull at my clothes, uneven stonework threatens to trip me up, and the tight band around my chest threatens to send me into darkness when I can’t breathe properly, but I don’t stop.

I can’t stop.

He killed the doctor—is that what he meant when he said Alyona had left? Did he kill her too?

What am I even thinking?

Of course he did. He might have used softer language about it, but how could I be so blinded by love that I didn’t see this? There’s no way Alyona was allowed to leave after what she did, and in some way, deep down, I understand why she would have to die.

But right now, all I can immediately focus on is the constant death.

Someone gets in his way and he just kills them.

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