Page 51 of Bratva Bride
The words hit like a blow to the chest. My heart stutters, dread unfurling in my gut. Nikolai was here. He was this close. I missed him, barely by a hair. Shit.
I turn away, clenching my fists. The truth burns like acid in my throat. So close. I want to scream, to rip the world apart until I find him, but I force myself still. There’s no time for grief, not when every second he’s further away.
I force my voice to stay steady. “Who moved him, Ludmila? Who gave the order?”
She shakes her head desperately. “I don’t know, Nadya, please. They don’t tell me anything. They just send messages. I’m nothing. Just a mother. Just a tool.”
My jaw tightens. “Then you’re going to remember something, or you’re going to be useless to everyone, including Alexei.”
I close my eyes, fighting the urge to break down. So close.
“Shit,” I whisper. “We almost had him.”
Arman steps forward, rolling his sleeves to the elbows like he’s preparing for heavy work. The industrial lamp throws a hard line of light across his face, making his scowl look deeper, older.
Ludmila watches him approach, and in that moment, I see something odd flicker in her eyes. Recognition. She draws back against her bonds, lips parting. “You…” The word barely makes it out, hoarse and trembling.
Arman doesn’t acknowledge her at all. No flicker of surprise, no change in his voice or posture. He simply reaches for her jaw, tilts her face up, and says, “Look at me.”
She does, barely.
I frown. She should not know my uncle. He stayed in Europe for years, keeping to his own shadows. Yet every time he leans in, she shrinks like she recognizes his scent. It pricks at me. Pyotr warned me.You can’t trust Arman.I thought my father too paranoid, but the way Ludmila’s eyes track Arman makes my stomach knot.
“Start again,” he tells Ludmila, his voice cold. “From the night Nikolai arrived.”
She flinches even before he touches her. Whatever softness she might have hoped for is gone. Arman tilts her chin with two fingers, thumb pressing against the bruise under her eye. Not hard enough to mark deeper, just enough to remind her that he can.
“I told you,” she whispers. “I don’t know anything. Alexei kept me out of it.”
“You must have heard a voice. An accent. You smelled the cologne on the man’s coat. Think harder.” He lets her go and paces behind the chair. “You don’t want to lie to me, Ludmila. Not tonight.”
Ludmila sobs, shaking her head, repeating the same denials.
He draws the blade slowly along her collarbone, not breaking the skin, just a warning. She jerks back, but there’s nowhere to go. Rifat steps closer, arms folded, his presence making the air in the warehouse heavier.
Arman’s voice is a low threat. “Names, Ludmila. Tell me or you bleed.”
She whimpers, biting her lip, shaking her head.
Arman sighs, almost bored, and rolls her sleeve back. He presses the knife’s edge to the inside of her forearm, the flesh paling around the contact. Then, without looking away, he pulls a short, shallow cut. Blood wells up, thin and bright. Ludmila screams, high and sharp, the sound slicing through the warehouse. Katya flinches, knuckles whitening around her medical bag, but she doesn’t move.
“I don’t know!” Ludmila wails. “Please, please?—”
Arman dabs at the blood with a rag, presses the tip of the blade to another patch of skin. “You will,” he murmurs. “Or we keep going.”
She sobs, shaking uncontrollably. For a moment, the knife hangs in the air, and the only sound is her gasping, pleading.
I can’t take it anymore. I can’t stand the sound of Ludmila’s screaming, so I slip out of the warehouse and into the pale morning light. The sky is a washed-out blue, the air cool on my arms. I hug myself tightly, trying to push the memory of the knife and her pleading from my mind. I’m not sure which is worse—what’s happening to her, or what I’m becoming.
The lot is quiet. Somewhere in the distance, a gull shrieks, and the city moves on as if nothing brutal is happening behind these walls.
A few moments later, I hear Arman’s steps crunch across the gravel. He joins me, lighting a cigarette, his face as unreadable as ever.
He doesn’t look at me right away. “Did you manage to slip in the tracking device?”
I nod, still staring out at the empty street. “Yeah. I haven’t checked it yet.”
“You might want to find out,” he says quietly. “Things are moving fast.”
