Page 62 of Triplets for the Russian Boss

Bonnie

I’ve been locked in my room with the dresser against the door for a full twenty-four hours. I’ve refused food, and Vladimir has stopped trying to coax me out. I’ve already told him that I’m not talking to anyone but Kostin.

I’m half-asleep on the bed, trying hard to stay awake so that nobody can bust down the door when I’m defenseless, when I hear head footsteps coming toward my room from down the hall. My head jerks up, and I focus on the dresser in front of the door.

A knock rattles the door, causing the dresser to rock back and forth, threatening to fall over. It’s propped up fairly well, but I’d know Kostin’s knock from anywhere. He always sounds like he’s trying to break the door down.

“Kostin?” I croak, getting up from the bed and forcing my stiff legs to guide me to the door.

“I heard you were misbehaving,” his deep voice rumbles through the wood.

I breathe a sigh of relief, even though I’m angry at him. Just hearing his voice calms me down. I feel safe with him, but not with anyone else, even the highly-armed guards outside. They can’t stop bullets.

“I’ll let you in. One second,” I say, grabbing the dresser and sliding it to the side. It was a lot easier to move when I was pumped full of adrenaline, but I manage to get the dresser far enough away from the door to open it for Kostin.

“Damn, you really barricaded yourself in here,” he says, as he steps in. “Vladimir was worried about you. He said you wouldn’t even eat.”

“I lost my appetite when a bullet almost went through my head. What the fuck is going on, Kostin?” I say, throwing my arms up. I’m tired of his mysterious persona and his refusal to tell me anything related to the Mafia. I need to know.

Kostin walks past me, holding a glass of whiskey in his hand with a little red maraschino cherry floating at the bottom. He seems entirely too relaxed for someone whose employee almost died. It makes me angry.

He sits down in a chair in the corner, crossing one leg over the other and leaning back.

“Are you not freaking out right now?” I ask, as he takes a sip and tilts his head back to look up at the ceiling. His expression tells me he isn’t, but he must be. There’s no way he could be this calm after I almost got my head blown off. Maybe he really doesn’t care about me.

Kostin shrugs. “It happens often enough. You’ll get used to it.”

“But I don’t want to get used to it!” I shouted, stomping up to him. “Maybe you take pleasure in dying, but I certainly don’t.”

“You’re not dead,” he replies calmly, stating the obvious.

If I were dead, I wouldn’t be so worried. Maybe it would’ve been better to have my head explode and be done with all of this, but that would leave our boys to fend for themselves.

My boys.

Jesus, I can’t believe that Kostin and I have triplets together. He has no idea.

“If you’re so worried, maybe you should carry a gun,” Kostin suggests.

“No thank you, Kostin. I’d rather not blow my own head off by accident.”

“You should learn how to use one,” he replies, staring back up at the ceiling. “They’re pretty easy.”

They certainly are. I could point one at him and put a hole in his stupid chest, and all of this would be over. That’d be an easy escape from the torment he’s but me through, and it’s not as though he wouldn’t deserve it, but he’s the father of my babies. I don’t have it in me to kill him.

“You need to tell me the truth, Kostin. I want to know who tried to kill me yesterday,” I say, my voice growing louder with each word.

“The 37th Street Bratva,” he says, suddenly tilting his head down and looking me in the eyes. “Are you happy?”

“I don’t know what that means,” I reply, taken aback that he actually gave me any answer at all. I was expecting him to continue brushing off my concern.

Kostin lets out a long sigh, then takes another sip of his drink before speaking. “The 37th Street Bratva is a Russian street gang, that’s notorious in the southern United States. We usually get along, but I may have pissed them off a little too much when I killed Jerry.”

I slap a hand on my forehead. “Jerry? I told you that was an insane thing to do, but you just think you know fucking everything, don’t you?”

“I’ll admit I was wrong,” he replies calmly.

“You were really fucking wrong.”

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