Page 59 of Ruthless Reign

His eyes dart down to the drill and then back up to meet my hard stare. He swallows thickly, sweat pouring from his forehead. “Artem,” he rasps.

“Nice name.” Pavel nods. “This guy over here is Roman Vasiliev. Surely, you’ve heard of him.”

Artem’s eyes bug out, and he looks like he’s about to piss himself.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought. He’s a little off on the best of days, but he’s really lost his shit recently. You see, there’s this girl he can’t have, who he really, really wants?—”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” I mumble.

Pavel only glances up at me with dry amusement. “As I was saying, he’s got a really persistent case of blue balls, and it’s making him pretty mean. So, if I can make a suggestion”—Pavel pauses, his light hair glinting under the fluorescents—“it would be not to worry about your future; worry about the here and now.”

With that, my friend slips a pair of brass knuckles onto his right hand and lands a powerful punch to Artem’s solar plexus, causing him to double over and wretch.

Good. Let him puke his guts out and rethink his stance on keeping quiet.

“My balls are fine,” I whisper-hiss at Pavel. “So how about you mind your own fucking business.”

I wish it was only a case of blue balls—that’s easy enough to relieve. Getting laid isn’t the issue; the issue is that my dick will accept one person, and one person only.

Artem has stopped retching and is looking between us, head swinging side to side like he has no fucking clue what’s happening but is happy that our attention is off of him.

“Since it seems you need a little motivation…” When I turn on the drill to get started, he really loses his shit.

“Fuck no!” Artem explodes. “You savage motherfuckers.”

“That’s exactly what we are.” Pavel decks him again.

I take two steps back, the noxious smell of puke invading my nose. I much prefer the metallic tang of blood. “Get talking. Who do you work for?”

He spits blood onto the ground, but he won’t raise his head to look at us when he mumbles a name.

“Speak up.” I kick him.

“The Zhukov Bratva. I work for the fucking Zhukovs.”

Pavel and I exchange glances. It’s impossible that we’ve never heard of a bratva operating in our territory. We reign supreme here, and all the bratvas answer to Maxim and the Belov Syndicate.

“Who the fuck are they?” I pace on the spot.

“A gang out of St. Petersburg. Two brothers, Nikolai and Sergey. They’re smart. Like, street smart. And vicious. Sergey has been running things for the last few years while Nikolai has been in jail, but they’re expanding, taking over more territory.”

“Why’d they meet with Anatoly Petrovich?” I snap, a bad feeling growing in the pit of my stomach.

“It was just Sergey tonight—no Nikolai—but I don’t fuckin’ know any of the details. All I do is stand guard outside and run errands for them.” He gestures to his dead colleague on the floor. “Dymtro knew more.”

Well, fuck.

I turn the drill on and make a big show of finding the right place to start my dirty work. “You know more than you think.” I smile at him, letting him take me in in all my unhinged glory. “Maybe you just need a reminder.”

Artem’s shrill screams echo off the walls. He’ll be talking in no time—no one wants to lose their cock to a drill.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

LIZA

“Elizaveta, please focus,” my mother chastises, her tone laced with frustration. We’re at the wedding planner’s office, deciding on the many details I have no interest in.

I huff out a sigh, my gaze darting back to my phone to keep an eye on a tech stock I picked up yesterday. The stock's price is climbing, so it’s time to sell. “The lemon cream was my favorite,” I offer, distracted.

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