Page 78 of Owned By The Bratva King

His needling overfamiliarity grates on my nerves. People should figure out when they’re being used and spare themselves the embarrassment when the realization finally dawns in their inferior brains.

“You’ll stick around until I’m done with you,” I say. Color creeps beneath Julian’s collar, and I smirk, enjoying his discomfort. “Bring Quinn inside first, both of you. Then we’ll talk.”

Julian and Lubomski exchange a glance before grabbing her and leading her into the building.

Bianca’s house was beautiful once. Now, it’s derelict, decrepit, and crumbling. The roof has a gigantic hole that exposes the attic to the sky, and the garden is thick with weeds and two-foot-high grass.

There are signs it has been lived in now and again—filthy mattresses and other human detritus litter the place—but it’s been a long time since it was a home. Roman couldn’t come back here after he found his sister’s corpse, so he let it go to ruin.

I’ve been holed up here with that idiot Julian. If it were up to me, I wouldn’t have enlisted the help of a reprobate like him, but I was supposed to be dead, so all my usual resources were denied to me.

Ricky Lubomski was a roll of the dice, but it paid off, and the nasty little turncoat is back under my thumb where he belongs.

A week is a long time to live in squalor with nothing but vengeance and a pile of burning library books to keep you warm at night.

I follow the two men as they wrangle Quinn into what was once the lounge. “Where do we put her?” Lubomski asks.

“Tape her so she can’t run.” They make short work of it, binding her ankles and wrists together tightly. “Now, sit her there,” I say, pointing.

Julian frowns. “Seriously? This whole dump is disgusting, but that chair?”

“Do it.”

The armchair is indeed a horrible sight. I remember it well; it used to be an elegant wingback in cream velvet, and it was Bianca’s favorite spot. She would cross her legs and lean back, the afternoon sun caressing her limbs.

Now, it’s tarnished with a vast burgundy bloodstain, cracked and dried, a matching splatter evident on the wall behind it. In the headrest, a hole has been punched into the armchair’s stuffing.

Quinn recoils in horror as Julian dumps her on the blood-caked seat. “Make yourself comfortable,” I say with a sneer. “This was once the home of Bianca, Roman’s beloved sister and the woman I was in love with. That armchair was hers, and, as you can see, she loved it to the last.”

She speaks, her voice hoarse. “She died in this chair, didn’t she?” I nod, and she turns away, squeezing her eyes closed. “You’re insane. Why are you doing this to me?”

Julian, ever the nagging leech, pipes up again, “About my payment?—”

I cut him off with a sharp glare. “Did you get the money from her? Because that was the deal. You get her to transfer it to my account, I give you half in return for delivering her to me, and you fuck off somewhere where Roman Kazanov can’t get to you.”

“She had a plan of her own,” he replies. She put conditions on it. She said she’d only release the funds to me when I was already out of the country.”

I narrow my eyes at him. “So what are you saying?”

“She still has it.” He shrugs. “And I don’t have a dime.”

How interesting. Roman’s fat little nothing of a wife has a brain in her head.

I’m pleasantly surprised, in a way; stupid people never grasp the full implications of their dire predicament like intelligent ones do, and I want her to run the gamut of suffering.

I bend down and grab Quinn’s chin in my hand. “If I open your banking app on your phone, are you gonna be smart and tell me how to log in?”

“Of course I will,” she says, her voice quivering. “It’s only money.”

“Spoiled bitch,” Julian laughs. “I wish I could have put her in those nasty films. It would’ve brought her down a peg or two. She’s too old now.”

It may be for his purposes, but it gives me an idea. I have no businesses now, no assets, and I need a start-up project.

Pimping Quinn out would be easy enough. Take her to another city, starve her into shape—why not? It’s not like she’ll have anything else to do once I’ve murdered her husband.

I look at Quinn’s phone and see a notification. A voicemail.

“Loverboy called!” I croon. I dial the number and put it on speaker, and the room is full of Roman’s tortured voice.

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