Page 49 of Broken Sins (Volkov Bratva 3)

“So?”

“So did you not wish them dead?”

She doesn’t say anything for a while. “Maybe I did in the moment. I don’t know. Not like this.” She looks to them, then back up at me. “Did you torture them?”

“No. We asked them questions. When it was time, their end came quickly.”

“All right.”

I see suddenly that she’s shivering. I frown. “Are you okay?”

“I’m going to sit down,” she says in a very careful, clipped voice. “I think I might fall over if I don’t.”

She promptly collapses.

She would’ve cracked her head against the corridor wall if I hadn’t stepped forward to grab her and ease her transition to the ground. I prop her up into a seating position against the wall.

When I am satisfied that she is in control of her body again, I settle into a position next to her, just as we were in her cell a few minutes ago.

I see a tear trickling down her face. “Why are you crying?”

“They’re dead, in case you didn’t notice.”

“But they were bad to you.”

“It’s … it’s not that simple.”

“No,” I muse, more to myself than to her. “Perhaps not.” I’m watching her carefully the whole time. Is she playing me? Or is she approaching the state I want her to be in—cooperative, suggestible? It is a delicate operation. One wrong move could send the whole affair careening in the worst possible direction. I need her submissive and compliant, but alert and aware. Right now, we stand on the precipice, the knife’s edge, close to falling in either direction.

She has her eyes closed and her head tilted back to rest against the stone wall. We sit in silence for a few slow heartbeats. “Can you tell me now what you want from me?”

I almost tell her. In that moment, I almost open my mouth and lay out the whole plan for her, start to finish. In the length of one brief, idiotic impulse, I almost ruin everything.

I catch myself just before the words slip from my mouth.

“Not yet,” I answer in a strained voice. I wonder if she notices my internal struggle.

How is she doing this to me? What is she coaxing out of me? She is a helpless captive. I have dealt with hundreds like her in my time.

But this one is different.

Perhaps it is because the look in her eyes demands I treat her as my equal. It is the same look that Dante wants to break, that Leo wants to dominate, that Vito wants to imprison. I, on the other hand, want to engage it. To set it free under the Bianci banner.

She is not yet ready for that, though. If I tell her the truth—we want you to betray your father and help deliver him to us unawares so we can make him pay for what he did to our family—she will never willingly participate. We have to stick to the plan—mold her mind according to our needs. This—the reveal of the dead frat boys—is merely the next step.

I reach into my pocket, retrieve my cell phone, and prepare the second.

The video feed I pull up is in crystal-clear high definition. “Look,” I tell Milaya, holding the screen towards her. She opens her eyes reluctantly, as if it pains her, and focuses on the phone with a frown.

I don’t have to look. Like the bodies in the cell, I know what it shows.

An apartment. One that Milaya is very familiar with. Secondhand leather couch, the countertop of a kitchen island. The room is empty. I swipe over to reveal the second feed.

This one is a bedroom. Queen bed jammed into one corner, rickety nightstand covered with makeup. A girl is sleeping on top of the comforter, curled up into a little ball. She is petite, feisty, with long blonde hair. Milaya knows her well.

“Anastasia!” she gasps. She looks at me. I blink, betraying nothing.

“There is blood on your hands already,” I tell her. I point towards the cell across from us where the frat boys lie cooling. “Thus far, only your enemies have been harmed. Innocent or not, it doesn’t matter. But next, it will be people you care about. Your friends are waiting to meet the same end, whether or not they know it.”

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