Page 196 of Emerald Malice

“Yelena,” a deep, familiar voice hisses, “where the fuck are you? You were supposed to have delivered her by now.”

Shock and rage ripples across Andrey’s face as he takes the phone from Shura’s hand.

“Yelena!” the voice barks again. “Where?—”

Andrey smashes the phone onto the floor and stomps it into pieces. “Fuck!” he roars so loudly that Yelena’s eyes fly open. She scrambles around in a panic, but her limbs are sluggish and her mouth flaps without any words coming out.

Andrey descends on her like a nightmare. “How long? How fucking long have you been spying for my father?”

Of course. That’s why the caller’s voice sounded so familiar. It was the same voice that told me my aunt was in the hospital.

Slavik did this.

Yelena looks towards me as though I can explain what’s happening. For a moment, I feel only pity for her. For this bitter, old woman surrounded by three hulking men who might kill her if she says one wrong word.

Then her eyes slide to the arm I’ve got wrapped protectively around Misha.

Her face twists and morphs. The tender, maternal woman I had come to know is gone.

Now that I’m searching for it, I see the anger there—the rage so deep and sudden that I clutch Misha closer like I can protect him from it.

“From day one,” she spits at last. She lets out a cackle of hard laughter. “You cost me my family. And you were egotistical enough to believe that I would simply accept it.”

Andrey’s jaw shifts. “This is about Yegor.”

“Yegor died fighting for his Bratva,” Shura declares. “For his pakhan.”

Yelena glowers at him. “My husband died following the orders of an inexperienced, foolish boy who didn’t know what he was doing.”

Andrey is quiet for a while. No one else dares to breathe. My heartbeat stills in my chest when he unsheathes a knife from his hip and toys with it. Twists it this way and that.

He’s never looked colder.

Without looking up, he orders, “Leonty, get Misha and Natalia out of here.”

Misha tries to steer my hand, but I’m frozen on the spot. “You can’t just kill her.”

“She’s a traitor. She was going to deliver you straight to my psychopathic father. She’s been spying on me, on you, on all of us,” he seethes, his control slipping. “After all this fucking time… death is a kindness. This is the Bratva way.”

“Then find a better way!”

“Lastochka—”

“Enough!” It’s Yelena who yells, cutting through our argument in a shrill voice strained with pain. She lifts herself off the couch with difficulty and looks towards me. “I don’t need you to defend me, girl.”

“I’m not defending you,” I throw back at her with disgust. “You deserve to be punished. But I don’t believe in senseless violence or unnecessary murder.”

“No?” Yelena asks, a vicious smile curling over her lips. “Well, I do.”

I see a flash of silver at her side and suddenly, she’s lunging at me.

I have only enough time to step back, Misha’s arms tightening around me, as the mouth of her gun rises and rises until I’m looking down the barrel.

Andrey moves first.

He grabs Yelena by the hair. Her eyes bulge cartoonishly as he yanks her backward, twisting her arm at the same time. The handgun she’s carrying drops, skitters across the floor, and settles to a stop at my feet.

Using her hair to steer, Andrey twists her around to face him. Then he slashes his blade across her throat, sending blood spurting out in nauseating red bouts.

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