Page 24 of Scars He Gave Me (Bratva Crime Syndicate 2)

“Your stuff is safe. I’ll get it tomorrow.” Not that I can let her use it. We’ll have to sweep it first. Until I know the room mix-up was nothing more than a mix-up, she isn’t going anywhere near traceable technology.

She stares at me, probably deciding whether or not to believe me. I don’t give a fuck if she does. If she wants to live, it has to be my way. If not, she’ll be free to go soon enough. “How long do you think it’s going to take to fix whatever this shit is?”

I shrug. How the fuck am I supposed to know? There are too many variables. But she needs an answer. I’m not above lying to her to shut her up so I can think without the sound of her voice making my cock jump.

“How long are you off for your honeymoon?”

“Until a week from Monday.”

That’s eight days. Should be enough.

“Fine. Stay until then. Or until I know you’re safe. Whichever comes first.” I take another shot and wipe my lips before I add, “Then we’re out of each other’s lives for good.”

7

Corinne

His bed smells like him. His pillow under my head. The blanket. The sheets. I can’t sleep. Too many memories, too much drama, danger—things I shouldn’t have to think about.

As if I didn’t have enough to think about already. “Roller coaster of emotions” doesn’t even begin to cover it. This was more like the thing Peyton bragged about in an all-hands meeting one time, some trip he’d taken on a supersonic airplane that goes way up into the atmosphere and then plummets back down towards earth so fast that everyone inside becomes weightless for a little bit. A vomit comet of emotions. Yeah, that sounds just about right.

I woke up and it was my wedding day. Oh boy, hip hip hooray for me. Sarcasm aside, part of me was honestly excited. What girl wouldn’t be? This was the stuff dreams were made of. Beautiful white dress, “I do,” a lifetime of health and happiness ahead of us.

Then the bottom fell out of things. Alvin got wasted. Alvin turned out to be a sadistic maniac. Alvin tried to rape me with a vibrator the size of an elephant’s trunk.

I want to say I’m heartbroken. Maybe I am, although I don’t know if IlovedAlvin. Not in the way that I once loved Tomas, at least. But I wanted to get married to him, I really did. I thought it was the right choice.

And now what? Do we get divorced? I guess that’s the only option. I should be sad about that. Iamsad about that. But little things like marriage certificates and divorce papers feels very, very distant from where I am right now.

Which is where, exactly? Oh, right—in the bedroom of the boy I once loved, who has now resurfaced at the craziest possible moment in my life to reveal that he is now some sort of brooding, homicidal hired gun who says things like“I’ll have someone take care of it.”

It’s safe to say I have more pressing issues to worry about.

Starting with my knight in shining Armani.

Tomas is … more than I remember him. Better. Stunning. And also, a murderer.

I’m in a murderer’s apartment thinking about how I want to live in his sheets and breathe in the smell of him until I die from the sheer pleasure of it. Tomas Dubrovsky is a killer who smells like sandalwood, musk, and man. I want him, every bit as much as I want to hate him.

After the way he broke my heart, I should be trying to get away as quickly as I can. But I’m not. Because despite everything, I’m curious about him, about everything that led him to this point—about the scars, the guns. How he knows those Italians goons or that the cops are on the Mafia’s payroll.

At some point, I’m going to have to make a statement to the police. Especially after the way Alvin ratted me out to the Italians for hiding in the closet, I know he’ll be just as quick to tell the cops, too. I have to head him off. Give my statement—the sooner, the better, right?

Tomas will know the answer. That’s the only reason I’m getting up right now to talk to him. Because this is important. I’m in way over my head.

Maybe, also, I want to talk to him. Maybe I want to immerse myself in his space and get a feel for the man who was my dream once upon a time.

But I tell myself I’m getting up solely to discuss the cops. That’s all. That’s what I repeat silently, over and over again, until it sounds vaguely true.

This place is huge, drafty, wide open with floor-to-ceiling windows, every modern appliance and convenience, but it has only two pictures, both of Tomas and his mother. If not for those, I would’ve never guessed this was his place.

It’s sterile. Cold. So, unlike his bedroom at his mom’s. Back then, he had dirt bike posters and boxing gloves hanging from a hook on his wall just inside the door. A bookshelf full of trophies from his days of peewee football and baseball and hockey.

And there were pictures of us everywhere: on his desk, by his bed, on the table, stuck to the walls. Everyone and everything he loved was represented in his old bedroom.

This place says nothing about the man who lives here.

I walk to the center of the living room where a pair of double doors face the wrong side of the apartment. The doors are old, round-topped, like somewhere in Russia an Orthodox cathedral is missing its front entryway. And heavy as hell, when I yank on them to find …

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