Page 36 of Stay Toxic

The soft laugh of my brother as Bronc hopped in had me thinking I was in the clear.

Bronc shifted to the spot between Tibbs and me and said quietly, “Do not, under any circumstance, get any ideas about that guy.”

I looked up at him sharply. “What?”

“What what?” He rolled his eyes.

“What are you talking about?” I asked.

“I saw you staring hard,” he said. “You know who that is?”

“The partial coffee shop owner,” I supplied.

“No.” He leaned forward so that only I could hear. “That’s Shasha Semyonov. He’s the leader of the fuckin’ Bratva.”

“What’s a bratva?” I asked. “Is that like a type of sausage?”

Bratwurst. Bratva.

They seemed similar.

“No, you idiot.” Tibbs rolled his eyes. “Like the Russian Mafia.”

“What?” I gasped. “Are you joking me right now?”

“No,” he said. “We worked on his place. Like, no joke, he’s the leader of the Russian Bratva. He’s a scary motherfucker, and you need to stop making googly eyes at him.”

“Where’s this house at?” I wondered.

“The lake.” He jerked his chin toward the other side of the lake.

I gasped. “Thatone?”

“That one” being the several-million-dollar-profit job that my brothers had first cut their teeth on in their business. It was the one job that created hundreds of other jobs for them. The one job that kept them with a four-year waiting list.

Holy shit!

I gasped for another reason when I remembered something.

Viveka had been killed just down the road from that man’s house!

Pulled up my sleeve and accidentally punched myself in the face. It’s okay, I had it coming for some time now.

—Shasha to Nastya

SHASHA

“Do you know how to use that?” Artur asked my sister, Nastya.

Nastya shrugged. “Not really, no. How hard could it be?”

Artur said something under his breath and reached for a different pole. “This one is likely more your style. If you try to cast this one, you’re gonna backlash the fuck out of it, then we’ll have to spend the next twenty minutes undoing it for you. And this is supposed to be a competition, not a lesson in patience.”

Nastya rolled her eyes but accepted the exchange of fishing poles.

I helped her tie her lure on for her, then went back to putting mine on.

She examined the white bait. “Why don’t I get a pretty worm like you?”

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