Page 88 of Sexting the Bratva Beast
I can hear Ivana’s gurgling breaths behind me, and I know that we’re running out of time. Somehow, I need to convince Yuri to let us go, to let me get Ivana the help that she needs, but I’m acutely aware that he’s the one holding the gun.
Ivana has a gun though. She tried to give it to me, but I put it down. I should’ve realized then that I’d need it.
I don’t want to draw his attention to her, but I need to find it.
“Biologically, I’m the only family you have left.” His mouth does that twitchy thing that doesn’t quite resemble a smile. “You’re an Asimov by birth.”
I think about the people in the photograph. My biological parents. The people I have no memories of but whose blood runs through my veins. Had they not been killed when I was a baby, I’d have grown up a printzessa. The daughter of a mafia boss, just like Gianna.
But Gianna isn’t a bad person.
They’re not bad people, Cartier.
Her words still echo inside my head. She’s right: Leonid and Andrej are not bad people even though they understand the language of guns and violence.
But this man…
Yuri Asimov is nothing like them. I sensed it when I met him in the café before he even asked me to help him take down the Ivanovs. His energy is cold and deadly, where Andrej’s is hot and alive. They might both be Bratva, but that is where the similarities end.
“If being an Asimov means standing back and remaining silent while an innocent woman dies, then I’m grateful that my name is Black.”
A puff of air escapes his nostrils as if he finds my comment amusing. “Innocent?” He gestures at Ivana with the gun in his hand. “You’re talking about the woman who helped me to track you down.” His eyes darken, and the glint of amusement in them is all for me.
I can imagine Yuri Asimov as the school bully who hurts the kids who don’t fit in, for the sheer fucking pleasure of proving that he can. Because deep down, he’s an insecure younger brother who would never have been Pakhan if my father had lived.
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” I don’t drop eye contact. “She saved my life.”
“She handed you to me on a plate.” His voice has grown the tiniest bit shriller.
Did he expect me to jump up and walk away with him because Ivana was his accomplice? The Bratva might be his world, but he knows nothing about people.
He knows nothing about me, and I feel a huge flush of gratitude that I wasn’t handed over to his care when I was a child.
“I don’t care. She doesn’t deserve to die like this. So, if that’s all you came back to say, I think we’re done here.”
I turn around to face Ivana, whose face is deathly pale. Her lips are cracked and blue, blood still collecting in the corners of her mouth. Her breathing is shallow, her chest barely moving. For a moment, I block Yuri Asimov from my thoughts, forgetting that I’ve turned my back on him while he has a gun in his hand.
Then, his voice breaks through my very real fear that Ivana will die if I don’t get help soon. “You leave me no choice, Cartier.”
Ice slithers down my spine.
My eyes drift to Ivana’s hand. To the gun that her fingers have found their way back to, now covered in her blood. Then, a tiny glimmer of movement snags my attention near the bookcase at the rear of the library.
What was it? A draft from the window catching the pages of a book? A spider?
“I hoped that you would have more sense than to fall for their lies, but I can see that I’m too late,” Yuri says.
“Their lies?” My voice chooses now to start playing hide-and-seek.
The bookcase is moving. Slowly. Silently. Surely. A millimeter at a time so as not to alert Yuri Asimov. My heart stops tryingto batter a hole through my chest and starts fluttering like it already knows who’s behind the Gothic bookcase hiding the secret entrance.
I need to keep my uncle talking. If that’s even who he is.
I don’t stand up. Instead, I place my hand over Ivana’s and pray that she can feel it. Or that she can hear the conversation. I want her to know that I’m here for her. I want her to know that I don’t care what she did, I won’t leave her here to die.
I face him, shifting my upper body so that he can’t see the gun underneath Ivana’s hand.
“Why should I believe you?”
