Page 69 of Claimed By the Bratva Brothers

“You have nothing on them!”

“I don’t need to have anything on them. I just needed enough votes from the other families to make sure that I could go ahead with my contingency plan before I take them out.”

Fear tightens its clutch on my throat, the grip so strong it nearly crushes my windpipe as I struggle to breathe. Waves of hot and cold wash over me, my vision blurry as this new reality begins to sink in. They caught me unprepared. They kidnapped and drugged me. And now, they’re keeping me hostage. To what end, I don’t yet know.

What I do know is that they’re making a different kind of move against the Sokolov’s. Against my men, my lovers. A violent kind of move. And the other families are now involved. This popped up as one of the least likely scenarios in my algorithm’s trial runs, though I could never figure out who would bow before the Feds and who would stay loyal to the Bratva. I didn’t have enough inside information.

“Where are they?” I ask Smith. “Max, Ivan, Artur. Where are they?”

“If I knew, I’d personally have already put a bullet in each of their skulls,” Smith grumbles, then nods at the paper bag. “You should eat something. It’ll help the tranquilizer effects wear off sooner.”

“You really are as bad as they said you were,” I mumble, unable to look away from this man. “You walk around, flashing that badge and pretending to be a man of justice, yet here you are—”

“Here I am, about to get richer once the Sokolov’s get fitted with their brand-new cement shoes,” Smith replies. “It’s a wild world out there, Miss Phelps. A wild and unforgiving world. For every drug dealer we take out, three more rise up to take their spot. For every mobster we indict, three more rise up to torment the same neighborhoods we worked so hard to clean up. I’ve been at it for years. Bowman, too, before me. We’ve seen it all, and we’ve seen enough. We can’t stop people from doing wrong, but we can at least make a pretty penny off of it. We can make sure our kids and grandkids will never have to deal with these assholes.”

“I’m sorry, is this the ‘if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em’ bullshit speech? I can’t believe you fell for it, Director Smith. You should be ashamed of yourself.”

“Ashamed of what? All the zeroes in my bank account, once the Sokolov’s are out of the race and the Bratva is back to doing what it does best? All those fuckers had to do was continue their daddy’s legacy. It would’ve been easier and cheaper, not to mention more profitable for everyone involved. But no, they had to be righteous pricks. Thinking they were better than the rest of us.”

“They are better. You’re proving that right now.”

Smith gives me a hard glare. “And look where that got them. Their own people have turned against them. You’re stuck here until we bury them. Like I said, you’re lucky I have too much respect for your father, otherwise, I’d—”

“Kill me. Yeah, you made that perfectly clear.”

“The option is still on the table, should you try something stupid,” he says. “Your old man won’t need to know the details. I can make it look like an accident. I’ve done it before. Be smart for once, Miss Phelps, and just sit tight. Eat something and stay hydrated while we hunt those bastards down and end this circus, once and for all.”

He laughs and walks out, having the decency at least to turn the light on. I hear the lock as the door shuts behind him. A single, dooming click. Every possible emotion is blowing through me right now, and it’s not long before I feel a panic attack coming over me.

I take several deep calming breaths as I start analyzing my situation, choosing to focus on the solution rather than the problem.

All I can do is be careful. Not only for my sake, but also for my baby’s.

Dammit, I should’ve stayed home.

23

Max

We’re lucky we still have friends in low places.

Rumors reached our ears and we smelled the rats. We figured it might come to this, so we prepared for the worst. They almost got us, though. Someone figured out that we had the penthouse as a safe haven. Ivan kept casing the block, almost obsessively. To his disappointment, his suspicions turned out to be true.

They came in the middle of night.

They wore black leather jackets, gloves, and balaclavas, silencers on their semi-automatic pistols. They thought they would catch us unprepared, but we were waiting quietly in the dark. They didn’t stand a chance. One by one, the assassins fell, and then it was our turn.

Ivan smashes Rudy’s knee with a baseball bat while Artur goes through his phone. I can barely hear myself think from all the screaming and wailing. We’re in a dumpy basement with only one functioning neon light, the sound of water dripping down the old, rusty pipes.

“Cry all you want,” I say, my arms crossed as I sit in a chair in front of Rudy. “No one’s going to hear you down here.”

The sound of his kneecap crumbling turns my stomach. We don’t like resorting to such measures but they gave us no choice. Rudy sobs, his face red as he struggles to cope with the pain, while my brother stands back for a moment, bat defiantly resting on his shoulder.

“I told you,” Rudy manages in between sobs, “I don’t know.”

“And I told you that I don’t believe you,” I reply. “Come on, Rudy. We go way back. I’ve known you since you were trying on your mother’s lipstick and red pumps. Remember? Your dad came home and found you like that, then dragged you across the block to show everyone.”

“Max, I swear to God, I don’t know what happened.”

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