Page 10 of Luka

There are consequences for taking a captive outside of the Bratva’s orders, but lately, I couldn’t tell you what they are. Leadership has changed hands—notfor the better—and I haven’t particularly cared lately about following orders from a leader as insufferable as Vitaly Petrov. Defying the Bratva for the sake of it has its appeal.

“Well?” Arseni prods me.

“Where would we keep her?”

Arseni’s excitement becomes electric, sparking the air. “Both our places. We’ll take turns.”

“Joint custody,” I quip.

“I get Christmas, you get Easter.”

“Bullshit you’re getting Christmas.” I mock glare.

“All right, fine.” He lifts his hands in surrender. “We’ll split her down the middle. You get the tits and mouth, I get the cunt and ass. We’ve already got the saw in the bag.”

“No. You’ve got to cut vertically, right down the middle.” I make a chopping motion. “Everyone wants the cunt. We’ll half everything equally.”

“No one wantshalfa cunt.”

The girl’s movement draws both our eyes. We watch as she sprints around us, wailing as her sandals slap earth.

I look at Arseni and raise a brow. “You’re a parent for all of a minute, and already, your child is a runaway.”

He cackles and cups his hands over his mouth to yell at the girl. “You get back here right now, little lady! I’m warning you!”

Unsurprisingly, she doesn’t slow. She disappears into the heavy shrubbery, making things slightly more interesting.

I glance at Piper’s body. There’s too much to do to be dicking around.

“How about this,” I say, giving his chest a light slap with the back of my hand. “We let her choose who gets her first. Then we switch off at the end of every shift at the mansion. Deal?”

His lips purse as he considers it, then he nods.

“When one of us gets bored, the other can have her. When both of us get bored, we get rid of her together.”

“Agreed,” Arseni says before stepping toward the trees. He spins and backpedals so he can wag his brows at me. “Daddy’s got a spanking to give.”

I laugh and rub the back of my neck, tempted to go with him, but goddamn Piper won’t leave my periphery. Even in death, she ruins things for me.

I go to her body and begin the work of disposal, starting with the issue of her identification. Girls who don’t have fingers don’t have fingerprints. And those girls are much harder to identify.

It’s only a minute before I hear the girl’s scream. She has no idea what a predator Arseni is, how useless it is to run.

Jealousy flares as I clip off another of the whore’s fingers with sheers, but I tell myself to be patient.

I’ll get my turn soon enough.

3

LUCIA

Ican taste Piper’s blood.

I don’t know how it could be possible, so I tell myself it’s all in my head. I keep my eyes closed so I won’t see what the tall one is doing to her because if I can’t see, I can’t smell what my mind conjures up, right? I can’t taste?

Wrong. I can hear. So I know. I know what’s happening, even though hardly any blood spills from the fingers and toes he methodically clips from her body with the crunch of a pair of gardening shears. And I can taste it.

I gag at the sound of a crunch, my eyes opening on instinct, but am quick to hunch over to face the ground. My hands are tied behind my back with strips of Piper’s tank top. The tall one cut it up while the handsome one held me in place, as if I’d try to run again after what he did to me.

---