Page 66 of Scars He Gave Me (Bratva Crime Syndicate 2)

And I’ve lost a child I never knew about.

A daughter. My daughter with Corrie.

Fuck.

20

Tomas

I pull the car into a semi-empty, unsupervised lot back in the city and sit.

I lost so much that night. My mother. The love of my life. My baby.

Maybe “lost” is the wrong word. Truth is, I gave them up.

I gave up my future with a woman I love and the family we would’ve made. I tossed them all away, along with any chance of happiness. The boy I was before that night believed in happiness, believed there was nothing Corinne and I couldn’t make our way through.

In a sick, twisted way, young Tommy was my first kill.

My unborn daughter was my second.

My stomach turns, and I want to slam my hand through a window, hear the shatter of the glass, feel the pain of my skin slicing open. I want to kill someone. Maybe that will take my pain away.

My phone rings, and I pull it out praying it’s her. Like a fucking fool. When it isn’t her, I slam my hand against the wheel as I answer. “What?”

“Tomas.”

The accent is thick. Russian. Heated. One of my father’s men.

“The club is under attack.” I can hear the gunfire in the background. Automatic. High-powered. Fuck! I slam the car into reverse and spin out of the lot. The streets aren’t crowded, but neither are they empty and there’s just enough traffic to make the going slow. Too slow, no matter how many alleys I speed down or sidewalks I drive up on.

When I skid into the lot, I roll out of the car, watching every shadow, listening to every whistle of the wind through the cars. The only sound is that wind whistling. No gunshots. Of course, there’s no pulsing music either. No whoops and hollers or drunken shouts.

Too much silence is as dangerous as the sound of bombs. I’m alone with a single gun and ten bullets in the clip.

Slow, deep breaths. Silent steps inside the club. Bleeding bodies.

I’m too late.

I run to the office in the back, the one that sits behind a wall of four-inch steel secured by an electronic lock and an iris scanner lock. Three people can get into that room: my father, Aleksey, and me.

I step to the sensor, but the door is already open. My father is face-first on his desk, his breath loud and rasping. Blood is sprayed on the wall. A pool of it collects under his face. A hole gapes in his back.

“Father!”

He’s alive. Barely. “Aleksey…” His voice is weak and confused. Fading fast.

“No, Dad. It’s me. Tomas. Who did this?” I have one hand on the desk phone and the other measuring his breathing. Not that I know what to do if it stops, but I have to do something.

“Aleksey.”

He’s fucking losing it. Goddammit. “Dad … it’s me, Tomas.”

But he lifts his head and nods. “Aleksey...”

On the third repetition of the name, I finally understand. The phone slips from my hand, and I look at him in horror.

“Aleksey … pulled … trigger.” My chest burns as my father takes his last breath, a shuddering, gurgling gasp.

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