Page 146 of Immaculate Deception (Romanoff Bratva)

Dima is drowning me…

Dima is stabbing me…

Dima is throwing me off a cliff…

Lukas is in them, too, of course. He’s crying. He’s laughing. He’s holding onto his father and pointing one chubby finger down at me as I fall over the edge into a chasm full of shadows…

I wake up with a sore throat. The sheets are plastered to my sweaty body and my hair sticks to the nape of my neck. My whole body hurts, like I was beaten up in the middle of the night.

It’s still the middle of the night, though, I think. The moonlight is coming in through the slats in the blinds and the cabin is quiet and still. I can hear Ernestine and June snoring in sync from the bedroom down the hallway.

Nothing else makes a noise.

Actually, that’s not true. I hear a shuffling sound from the bathroom. When I look up, Dima emerges. He’s holding a duffle bag.

“Good,” he says when he sees me looking at you. “You’re up. Let’s go.”

“What?”

“Which part of that was confusing to you?”

Internally, I want to scream. How can one man be so fucking infuriating?

Externally, I just stare at him. “Go where? How? Now?”

He rubs a tired hand over his face. “You have a son out there, in case you forgot.”

“I don’t know why you have to be such a fucking ass—”

“We don’t have time for this,” he interrupts. “Things are happening. Plans are in motion. You said you wanted to be a part of this? You don’t want to be kept in the dark? Then keep up, Arya. Now, are you coming or not?”

Why do I feel so hesitant all the sudden? Maybe it’s because I’m still half-asleep and disturbed by my violent dreams.

Whatever the cause, I find myself fidgeting in bed. I glance down the hallway. “What about Ernestine and June?”

“I left them cash and instructions to find a Bratva safehouse. Somewhere far from the action. They’ll be safe until we… until this is done.”

His pause doesn’t escape my attention.Until we come back,is what he was going to say.

But I know what it means that he changed his word choice—he doesn’t intend to come back with me. He meant what he said: that the Bratva is his future.

His only future.

“I’ll ask you one last time,” he says. “Are you coming to save your son?”

* * *

We are still outside the city when Dima pulls off on a long road that turns out to be a driveway. It leads up to a formidable-looking bunker.

“What is this place?” I ask.

“Bratva safehouse.”

“Safe… house?”

“Yes,” he says. “Like a house that’s safe. Thus the name.”

I whirl on him. “I get the drift, asshole. Why in the hell didn’t you bring us here when we left the hospital?”

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