Page 60 of Scars He Gave Me (Bratva Crime Syndicate 2)

His car isn’t parked outside and I can’t see into the garage, so I knock and wait. Then I knock again.

Nothing.

Alek being M.I.A. is bad, considering no one except for me and my father is more dedicated to Bratva business than Alek. My gut says something isn’t right.

But I don’t have any other leads.

Until, suddenly, I remember the apartment he keeps on Long Island. We used to crash there when we were younger and still doing trips ourselves to transport guns and drugs out of the city. I remember him telling me that he keeps meaning to get around to selling it, but never has time.

With no better options, I get back in my car and make the drive there.

When I arrive, I take the stairs because I still need to work off some of the excess sexual energy from torturing myself and letting Corrie torture me this morning.

His apartment is most of the fourth floor and has enough overpriced art to let Alek pretend he’s cultured.

The only truly impressive item in the whole place is the monster of a bed I helped him move in here. It’s got a mirrored canopy and a headboard and footboard for bondage restraints. In one corner, there’s a pole, obviously, because who doesn’t have a pole for dancing anchored floor and ceiling in the bedroom? But from experience I can say it’s erotic as hell to lie on the bed and watch a woman grind against it.

Fuck. Now I’m picturing Corrie on a pole in my bedroom.

That lasts to the moment I walk from the elevator around the corner to his door. It’s open enough to see the latch is broken and the frame is splintered.

God fucking dammit.

I pull the gun from my waistband and hold it down beside my leg as I push the door open. Then I raise it and survey the room.

The place is trashed—furniture sliced open and overturned, pages torn from Alek’s collection of books littering the floor. The art on the walls has been slashed and hangs crooked if it hangs at all. One of the kitchen cabinets is lying on the ground. Others have doors askew, contents shattered or broken open and leaking.

The first droplet of blood is on the floor beside the bathroom door. But a trail of the stuff leads to—or maybe from?—the bedroom.

I take one step to follow it—and a blow grazes my arm, knocking my gun out of my grasp so that it slides across the floor as another fist catches me on the jaw and the first guy bear hugs me from behind.

They’ve got the element of surprise. But I’m bigger, I’m stronger, and I’m very well trained. I use all my strength and fling us backward into the wall at the same time I throw my head back.Crack.Bone shatters. The air whooshes out of him and he lets go of me to grab his nose.

I turn and drive my fist into his gut then spin back as the bastard goes the rest of the way down. The second guy fills his space instantly. His punch grazes my shoulder as I dodge. I grab him by the shirt and jerk him down so his face makes solid contact with my knee.

“Eeeugh!” he bellows in pain.

But I don’t let go of him. Because I hear the metal click that can only mean one thing. Spinning, I put the second attacker between me and the son of a bitch charging out of the bedroom. This third man fires the gun he’s pointing at us anyways.

It hits his comrade, the one I’m holding as a human shield. The man twitches and falls limp.

The first scrawny guy is back up, and I don’t have any choice but to toss him like a bag of lard into the bastard holding the gun. Their distraction gives me time to retrieve my Glock and fire. The big guy goes down, blood leaking from the hole in his forehead, and I grab the scrawny guy, smashing him once in the face with the butt of my gun.

“Where the fuck is Aleksey?” I roar.

The tiny Italian is bleeding all over me, but I need answers. Now.

He’s holding his face, his probably broken jaw. Fuck. Even four floors up with the windows closed, I hear the squeal of tires. It’s either cops or Italian reinforcements. I don’t have time to deal with either. I hit the little guy again to knock him out, then it’s a two-second sprint to the door and a couple more to the stairs.

Fuck!

Fuck!

Whatever’s going on, the Italians clearly have Alek. And that shit isn’t going to fly. No greasy Italian meatball is going to get the best of the Bratva.

18

Corinne

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