Page 7 of Marked & Bred By the Bratva
I text. Hey, just wondering if the maintenance guy came by? My drawer looks… touched?
No response.
I stare at my phone, my heart beating fast against my ribs.
Then I shake my head, grab a hoodie, and text my coworker Sofia.
Ava: Wanna grab a drink tonight? I need company.
She texts back two seconds later.
Sofia: Yasss. Drinks and gossip, let’s go.
It’s stupid, but… maybe if I spend a night pretending everything’s normal, it will be.
Six
Lev
She went out.
With friends. To a bar. With men.
She wore a fucking skirt.
And now I’m pacing the hidden crawlspace like a damn animal while she drinks and laughs with her girlfriend.
When my phone buzzed with her text thread, my jaw clenched so hard I almost cracked a tooth.
She’s showing off her tight little body in public like it doesn’t belong to me.
I fist my hands. Fight the urge to break something.
My phone rings.
“What?!” I bark.
A pause. Then: “Lev. It’s Mikhail. The job’s done. We’re good to go. Where are you?”
“Off-grid.”
“You’ve been off-grid for weeks, boss.”
“I’ll call you back.”
Click.
* * *
Mikhail doesn’t know I’ve spent the past ten nights inside the walls of a crumbling building. Living on protein bars and black coffee. Jacking into Ava’s Wi-Fi to monitor her phone, her thermostat, her fucking life.
All he knows is Lev’s gone dark again.
And no one asks questions when a butcher goes dark.
* * *
But I’m not a butcher tonight.
