Page 55 of Scars He Gave Me (Bratva Crime Syndicate 2)

And Peyton right now looks ugly as sin.

“None of your business.”

He closes his laptop and stands to walk around his desk, then leans back against it. He’s going for cool and casual, but the effect is the exact opposite. He looks more like a rat caught in a trap. His body’s too stiff. Too controlled.

“Your business is the programs I assign to you. You do what I say. What you agreed to do when signed your contract.”

“If they’re blackmailing you…”

His face flashes an angry red. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You know exactly what I’m talking about. And what I’m trying to tell you is I might be able to help you—if you help me.”

16

Tomas

“Say it again. Slower.”

Corrine puffs a fallen strand of hair from over her face, takes a deep breath, and begins the story from the top. She talks fast and waves her hands a lot when she’s worked up. If this wasn’t a conversation about the deadly serious existential threat facing down my Bratva, I might even be inclined to call that little nervous habit cute.

But thingsareserious. Very fucking serious. What she’s telling me is that her own boss is the one responsible for Flash Bomb. It’s a vicious coincidence that the Italians would choose him. That, in a weird way, they’re the ones who brought Corrie back into my life.

When Corinne told me that, my first instinct was to storm the offices of Sentinel Security and bash Peyton Wilson’s head against his desk until he doesn’t have a face anymore. In fact, I was already checking my pistol magazine to make sure it was full before Corrine managed to tell me that she’d already put a plan together.

“You what?” I’d said to her.

“I figured it out.”

The gist of it is this: if the Bratva agrees to provide some physical security at Sentinel to safeguard against the Italians swarming in, then Corinne, Leila, and Peyton will write an addendum to the program that’s attacking our businesses.

“And that addendum will do what?”

“A bunch of techy mumbo-jumbo you wouldn’t understand.”

“Make me understand then,” I growl. My trigger finger is still itching to make this Peyton Wilson pay for what he’s done to the people I’m supposed to be protecting. He’s harmed innocents, civilians just trying to make an honest living. He deserves to suffer for that.

“It will… turn it around, basically.”

“Turn it around,” I echo. “Why shouldn’t I just turn my gun around on this bastard’s fucking head?”

Corrine shakes her head emphatically. “Because then the virus would still be out there causing chaos. He did this, Tommy. He’s the one who has to fix it.”

Maybe it’s her calling me “Tommy” that softens me. A name that’s too innocent for the man I’ve become. It brings forward a thought that’s been lingering in the back of my head ever since this virus first showed itself: that maybe violence isn’t always the answer.

I’ve found myself in this weird, fucked-up world of ones and zeroes, of bits and bytes, of impossibly tangled emotions for a girl I thought I left behind.

But here’s the thing: she understands this world better than I do.

Can I trust Corinne here?

Ever since I ran away from our hometown, my life has been about taking control of my surroundings—by any means necessary. My father taught me to use my fists, my guns, my soldiers. That’s what it is to be a Bratva man. To be thederzhatel obschaka.

Might makes right. Solve problems by cracking heads. Spill blood to make your point.

But I can’t punch a virus. I can’t torture a computer.

So what is there to do? The answer is staring me in the face with big puppy dog eyes, but I don’t like it. Corinne’s plan is basically for me to take my hands off the steering wheel. Let her do what she does best.

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