Page 18 of Ruthless Bratva King

The cop’s gaze rakes over me like I’m a piece of meat. “Come here, kid.” He pulls the gun from his holster, pointing it straight at me. “I’ve got a dozen bodies cut into pieces and I’m betting you know something about it.”

I backpedal, my breath hitching. “I shouldn’t have come here.”

“Come here kid, or I’ll put you in cuffs.”

Before I can respond, a deep rumbling voice cuts through the tension like a knife.

“You won’t touch my fiancée.”

The men freeze, their expressions shifting from amusement to alarm. I turn toward the sound, my heart skipping a beat.

Dmitri steps out from the shadows, his presence as commanding as ever. His dark eyes lock onto mine for a brief moment before shifting to the two men, cold and calculating.

The cop’s eyes bulge. “Dmitri?” he says, glancing at the other guy. “He never said it was you. God, I’m sorry. Look.” He rips up the page in his notebook. “I don’t know anything.” He starts to tear up, sniffing loudly. “Please, I’ve got kids, man.”

The other guy looks like he’s staring at the Grim Reaper. “Dmitri?” he says in a weak voice. “As in Dmitri Chekov?”

Dmitri nods. “You tell Lombardi,” he starts, his voice low and deadly, “Elena Carlton is my fiancée. Anyone who touches her will answer to me.” He stares at the cop, gun still held in his hand. “You going to shoot me, Adrian, or you going to put it away?”

The cop shakes his head. “I swear I didn’t know,” he says, his voice filled with terror. “He just called it in and he never said.” He starts crying, openly, his shoulders shaking as he sobs. “Please, you don’t have to do this.”

Dmitri turns to me. “You see my car over there?”

I glance where he’s looking. “Yeah, why?”

“Get in it while I finish explaining a few things to these two.”

He walks over to the two men, leading them back into the building.

The moment they’re all out of sight, I run over to Veronica and climb into her car. “What the hell just happened?” she asks. “He appeared out of fucking nowhere.”

“Drive,” I say, tugging at her arm. “We need to get the hell out of here right now.”

14

ELENA

Three days later…

The soft hum of my favorite library is welcome after the chaos of the last few days.

In front of me, the application for the architecture course sits half-completed, its pages begging for my full attention.

I keep getting distracted, wondering whether or not Dmitri will come looking for me.

Three days since I ran from him and nothing has happened. No SUVs outside my building, no breaking into my place with lock-picks, nothing.

I chew on the end of my pen, staring at the section that asks for a personal statement.

What do I put? I came into the world as a mistake and have been reminded of that fact regularly since? I turned to drawing buildings to connect with a grandfather I hardly knew?

How do I summarize a lifetime of feeling like I wasn’t good enough? Of being told I should leave the dreaming to others with bigger brains than mine?

The doubts creep in, uninvited as always. Maybe I’m not good enough. My father might be right.

No.I shake my head, forcing the thoughts away. I’m doing this for me. For the part of me that still believes I can create something better, even if no one else ever believes in me.

“Elena,” a voice says, deep and smooth.

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