Page 6 of Innocent Bratva Hostage

“Easy, big guy,” Rafayel teased, his lips curling with a smirk. “We’re not so sure what she knows and doesn’t know.That could be a cryptic message with nothing more to it. He wouldn’t be stupid enough to drag his daughter into this mess.”

Rafayel was right.

Peter’s daughter had no ties to the mafia, at least not officially. Her mother made sure of it when she got a divorce from Peter. No one knew anything about her aside from the fact that her name started with the letter G, and he provided everything she needed, even from a distance.

But that changed now that we knew she was the last person he contacted before he died. We weren’t going to take any chances.

“She knows something,” Miron said with certainty. “Or she at least must’ve seen or heard something.”

Rafayel glanced at me, his cold, dark eyes filled with curiosity. “And if she doesn’t?”

I flashed a cocky smile. “You think I’ll kill her, too?”

“We don’t hurt women or children, remember? We don’t harm the innocent.”

“Tell me, Rafayel, have you ever seen me hurt a woman or a child before?” I kept my face blank, leaving it up to him to figure out if I found his concern offensive or not.

It was disrespect to the codes I live by for him to question my morality like that, and he knew it. The mafia world was so dark and bloody that those moral codes were the only thing that made us slightly human.

His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “You’re obsessed with the drugs.”

“Am I?” I finished the rest of my whiskey in one gulp, my brows knitting only a little at the taste. The whiskey burned, but I welcomed it, letting it settle like armor in my gut, and then I set the glass down with quiet finality. “I’m concerned about what would happen if those drugs got into the wrong hands, Rafayel.”

“Cut it out, both of you.” Egor’s gaze fleeted in my direction. “There’s a chance Peter’s murderers have the information we do. Make sure you find her before anyone else does and get what we need.”

That wasn’t a request from Egor; it was an order.

“She won’t just hand over information,” Miron muttered. “Want me to come with you? I could get the information out of her with just one torture session.”

“She’ll talk,” I answered simply, pushing up from the couch and pocketing the phone. “I’ll make sure she does.”

“What happens if she insists she doesn’t know anything?” Rafayel asked, still staring at me as if I were a seven-horned devil who was about to condemn an innocent soul to hell. He’d been the closest to Peter, so I wasn’t surprised he was trying to keep Peter’s daughter safe.

I couldn’t claim his concern was entirely unfounded because, at that moment, I was ready to do whatever it took to recover those drugs.

I smirked. “Then she’ll have to convince me.”

And I wasn’t very easy to convince.

Chapter 3 - Giselle

They said there were five stages of grief—denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. But I didn’t feel any of those when I got the call that Dad died. I didn’t feel anything.

Even now, I felt nothing more than fog in my brain and a heaviness in my chest that made it hard to breathe. I couldn’t cry even when I was dying to. I knew I would get some sort of relief if I did, but I couldn’t.

A couple of days had passed since I got that call, and I still couldn’t understand how I went from sipping coffee in a beautiful café to standing in a cemetery where the scent of roses and damp earth clung to the cold air, mixing with the lingering sting of loss.

I was surrounded by friends and a few of Dad’s family. Mom couldn’t make it down here because I’d fixed the burial as quickly as I could. I couldn’t stand the thought of Dad remaining in the morgue in the state his body was found in. I’d seen him. I’d seen the hole right in the middle of his head and the stitched-up stab wounds. I’d felt the coldness of his skin when I touched him.

None of it made sense to me. None of it ever would.

Today wasn’t like it was on the day he’d died. The sun wasn’t out in full force, and the streets weren’t buzzing. The sky mourned with me, gray clouds hanging low as if they, too, carried the weight of my father’s death.

Dad was gone, and I was expected to stand here and read a few words from a piece of paper like they could convey everything I wanted to say. I was supposed to bury him and move on like my world hadn’t been torn apart. What a joke.

I clutched the paper in my hand and smiled at everyone who came to pay their last respects. They all looked at me withpity, as if they could see how much I struggled to hold myself together.

I glanced down at the paper in my hands, trying to read from it, but I couldn’t see past my blurry vision. I wasn’t going to cry, but it was hard to stop the tears from welling in my eyes.

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