Page 58 of Bratva Knight

He frowned.

“You look confused. Allow me to elaborate.” I threw my knife, the blade sinking deep into his thigh.

He screamed, dropping to the ground and clutching his thigh, blood seeping through his fingers. “What the fuck?!” He reached for his gun and I rushed forward, kicking it out of his hand.

I flattened him on his back with a boot to the chest. “Valentino's operation has crumbled, and now we've laid claim to his territory. Do you know what happens when you interfere in Bratva business?” I applied more pressure, grinding my foot deep into his sternum. He choked, gasping for air, his hands clutching at me with desperation. “You die.” I whipped out my gun and pressed it into his forehead, pulling the hammer back.

“Wait! Wait! Wait!” he rasped, his pupils swallowed by fear. “Please.”

A word like that from a man like him would have been extremely difficult to utter.

I had two options before me. Kill him, or show mercy. Usually, mercy was something I did not possess. But in situations like this, I thought five moves ahead. Killing him now with no one to witness it, or understand the reason as to why, would only cause more problems for us. We had a lot of shit to worry about. We didn’t need to add another enemy onto our list.

I leant forward until we were face to face, making him look at me dead in the eyes. “Understand something, Mr Delacourt. No matter how big or tough you think you are, you arenothingcompared to the Bratva. Our reach is infinite. We have people everywhere, some even within your own organisation. You get in our way and you and everyone in your little club will be killed in the most horrific way imaginable. And I have averyvivid imagination. Do I make myself clear?”

“Y-yes,” he groaned.

“Excellent.” It was so much easier when they understood the gravity of the situation.

I stood to my full height, finally taking my foot off his chest. He gulped in a huge breath of air and curled up on his side, moaning in pain. “It is a shame we could not do business. One of the few things we do not tolerate is disrespect, and you had that in abundance. Perhaps you can use this as a lesson for next time.”

“How are things going?” I asked Aleksandr through the phone as I sped through the streets of downtown New York.

He grunted, the typical response my brother gave for pretty much everything. “The same. There’s still no word on Father or Dominik. It’s like they literally just disappeared into thin air. Any luck on your side?”

“None.” I switched lanes and took a right turn, my hands gliding over the wheel. “None of my facial recognition programs have picked up anything. Thousands of possibilities, but that’s about it.”

“Do you think it’s possible they’ve left the country?”

“No. I’ve got all our contacts in the airports on high alert for him, and he doesn’t own a private plane. He could try to hire one but I have that flagged. If anyone tries to charter a plane matching his description, I’ll be notified.”

“Then where the fuck is he?” Aleksandr growled. Something clattered over the phone, most likely my brother kicking or hitting something out of sheer frustration. Then a light, feminine voice started yelling at him in Spanish. Drea.

"Eja de romper mierda. Acabo de limpiar el piso, imbécil!" Stop breaking shit! I just cleaned the floor, asshole!

"Es mi casa maldita, yo romperé todo lo que quiero romper!“ It’s my goddamn house. I’ll break anything I want to break!He yelled back in Spanish.

"¿Quieres dormir fuera?! Di un puto mundo más." You want to sleep outside?! Say one more fucking word.

My brother grumbled under his breath, “You can’t make me sleep outside, crazy woman.”

"¿Que ha sido eso?!“ What was that?!

“Nothing!” he growled.

"Eso es lo que pense.“ That’s what I fucking thought.

I laughed, the entire conversation amusing the absolute fuck out of me. “She’s a feisty one, isn’t she?”

“You don’t even know the half of it,mladshiy brat, little brother.”

“You sound happy though. Apart from all the screaming, that is.”

“I am happy. Well, as happy as I can be, given everything that’s been going on lately. How did the meetings with prospective clients go?”

I gave him a run down on everything. I’d only had time to meet with two of them so far. Alex Delacourt and Max Ines. Alex was not someone we would ever work with, now or in the future, but Max was. He was respectful, didn’t try to step out of place or dictate to me how things should be done and didn’t seem like the type that would ever rat out his suppliers.

“Alright, so we’ll organise an order for Max and Alex is out. What about the other three?”

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