Page 114 of Lies He Told Me (Bratva Crime Syndicate 1)

That either you fight for yourself or you die, plain and simple. The moment you leave your fate in someone else’s hands, the moment you accept what you’ve been given, that’s it.

It’s simple biology—eat or be eaten. Conquer or be conquered.

I lean against the wall. I’ll return to my men soon. I can take this minute for myself. I don’t know why. I don’t want to know why.

Footsteps.

When I look up, I see it. Not Joy, not any of my men. It’s a man with a gun that’s too big for him and a skull tattoo on his face, like a target telling me right where to shoot him.

He’s grinning. “I know you.”

Idiot.

Skull Kings travel almost exclusively in packs, which is for their own good. Since they recruit anyone and everyone, more often than not, their aim is shit, their reflexes slow. What they have and have always had, is numbers, plain and simple. Like a swarm of rats.

I could have shot this one now in the time it took him to smile, but I’m not in the mood.

“If you turn around and walk the way you came, I’ll let you live,” I tell him.

Joy was wrong about me not keeping my own creed.Never hurt anyone not in the game.Hell, this man is mired in the game, and still I am extending my mercy to him.

But no matter how you look at it, Damon was never in the game, was he?

The Skull King idiot hasn’t moved. He’s smiling in a way that means he’s about to die. He simply does not know it yet. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“I guess that’s that then,” I say. “You’ll have to die.” I shoot his hand holding the big gun before he can even blink. He drops it with a pained bleating.

I let my own weapon fall and lunge for him.

I want to do this with my bare hands.

My fists smart and pulse with each blow. He’s all skinny sinew—punching him is like punching a board. His body spasms and crackles under my blows. Bones snap. Blood flows.

It’s impossible to stop, once it’s started. Like a cannonball rolling down a hill, my body goes through the motions on autopilot. I was built to kill. I lift weights and spar with my generals for this. I was born for this.

Vaknin Bratva members do not trust the fate of their lives to their weapons. They know that an enemy’s life is best taken with one’s own two hands.

And this man, this nothing, has already had his fate rendered. His groans have slackened to gurgles, half-forgotten syllables. I couldn’t stop even if I wanted to.

As long as my fists are going, as long as I’m punching him, smashing him on the pavement, squeezing the life from his throat, then I don’t have to think of her.

So I don’t stop, even when he is long dead.

I don’t even know how long I’ve been pummeling this lifeless rat before my men find me. I only snap back to reality when I hear Ludmil say, “Boss?”

I look up at him from where I kneel in the blood of my enemy. My men are staring at me in horror. I don’t give a flying fuck.

All I say is two words.

“Find her.”

27

Joy

Hi, my name is Joy, and my life is a mob romance novel.

There must be some kind of support group for women like me, right? Mob Boss Ex-Wives Anonymous?

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