Page 84 of Cashmere Cruelty

Petra halts. “What?”

“In your blazer.”

Forgetting all self-preservation, I walk around the couch and grab the fabric. I can see Petra flinch like a feral cat, can hear what’s most likely the sound of a pocket knife being unsheathed—and like, I know I asked for swords, but I didn’t actually mean it—when her eyes find the same spot mine did.

“Oh,” she says. “Guess I must’ve caught a nail or something.”

That’s clearly a bullet hole. “Take it off.”

Petra’s face goes scandalized. “Pardon me?”

I sigh. “Take it off so I can mend it. Come on, I don’t have all day.”

My words only seem to confuse her more. “Why would you?—”

“It’s a Vuitton!” I cut short. “No Vuitton deserves that. Off now, please.”

Shocked, Petra complies.

I take the patient to the table. It’s a really nice blazer—Korean neckline, butterfly sleeves. It must’ve cost as much as my entire deposit, if not more. What do people say: three months’ worth of salary for an engagement ring, six for a designer blazer?

Regardless, I can’t bring myself to leave it like this.

All throughout the process, I’m painfully aware of Petra staring at my every move, like she’s trying to catch me sewing a micro-bomb into her sleeve—which, I mean, should I?

“So,” I say for the sake of conversation and not dying of laser eyes, “how’d you end up working with Matvey?”

I can tell Petra’s stunned. Honestly, I’m a little stunned myself. Why make the effort?

“We met on a job,” she answers evasively. “It was love at first sight.”

Yeah, and I’ve got an island to sell you.“So you were already in the business, then?”

For some reason, that seems to irk her. “I was born into it,” she answers proudly, a lioness shaking her mane. “I was Bratva before I could walk. My first word waspistolet.”

“That doesn’t meanhug, I gather.”

“It meansgun.”

That tracks. “So, what’d you do to get kicked out?”

Petra stares at me like I’m the stupidest person on the planet. All things considered, I might be. But I can either work or keep a social filter, and right now, this blazer needs me. So I elaborate. “C’mon. You’re a mafia princess. Why would you scheme for a crown if you already had it?”

Something flits over her expression. Outrage, maybe. Admiration, perhaps. “I’m a girl,” she answers at last. “Girls don’t get the throne. They get a ring on their finger and a smelly ogre to pick up socks for.”

“That’s a romantic outlook.”

“If you ever met my father, you’d know that’s a rosy option.”

“Fathers,” I snort back. “I know something about that, alright.”

For a moment, Petra doesn’t say anything. I don’t expect her to speak again at all.

Except she does. “I have the highest body count in the Solovyov Bratva,” she huffs like she’s complaining her dad won’t let her go out wearing a miniskirt. I shudder. Maybe I shouldn’t have let my filters go wild after all. “But all my father sees is a little girl to marry off. So I struck a deal with Matvey. He gets our numbers; I get a position.”

“Pikmin?” I venture.

“What?” She blinks in confusion until she realizes what word I’m butchering. “No, notpakhan.It’s still a man’s world, after all. But he’ll make mevor.That’s the next best thing.” Then, quieter: “No woman has ever beenvorbefore. I intend to be the first.”

---