Page 70 of Immaculate Corruption (Romanoff Bratva)

“You didn’t see your grandma or Lukas where you were?” I ask.

She shakes her head and her lower lip starts to tremble. “They wouldn’t tell me where she was or if she’s okay. I don’t know what they want. They wouldn’t talk to me and then they just put me in a car and brought me here.”

I hug the girl and kiss her temple, smoothing my hands down her arms. She’s shaking like a leaf.

“She could be wired,” Dima says quietly. “Why else would they release her?”

Because they don’t want to take care of a ten-year-old girl? She’s not old enough to take care of the baby, and she’s not very useful collateral, so that makes her expendable. Maybe they just let her go. Though even I have to admit, it seems unlikely.

Gennady agrees. “You have to check her.”

I hate treating her like a criminal, but they’re right. No one from outside this room can be trusted. Not even a small child.

“I’m sorry, honey, but I’m going to pat you down, okay? Just real quick.”

June is trembling, but she nods and holds out her arms. I pat her down, feeling under her shirt and down her legs. I ask her if anyone attached anything to her or touched her at all and she insists they didn’t.

“The only thing they gave me was this.” She reaches into her pocket and pulls out a small slip of paper.

I take it from her.

The note is handwritten in a slanted hand.Dvu´m smertya´m ne byva´t', odno´y ne minova´t'.“It’s in another language,” I say. “I can’t read it.”

Gennady plucks it out of my hand and scans it. His eyes widen before he hands it off to Dima. “It’s for you.”

Dima reads it and goes still. The volatile mood from a moment ago seems to disappear. He retreats within himself. Those dark eyes go stone cold.

“What is it? What does it say?” I ask, looking back and forth between the two men. “Is that why they sent her here? To deliver the note?”

Gennady is the one to speak. “It’s a Russian proverb. It translates to something like, ‘Two deaths will not happen, but one is inevitable.’”

I shake my head. “And what the hell does that mean?”

Dima drops the note on the desk and collapses on the edge of the bed. His hair is a sweaty mass of curls hanging around his ears and eyes. He runs a tanned hand through it. “It means people should be willing to take risks because they can’t die twice.”

I wrap an arm around June and sigh. “I need longer explanations. More words. What does that mean? What does that have to do with anything? Is Ilyasov saying you need to risk your life again by trying to fight him? Because that’s a hard disagree from me.”

Dima shakes his head. “It’s the proverb my family has used to initiate the Romanoff Trials.”

I wait for him to explain, but when he doesn’t, I growl and circle my finger in the air. “What? More. Come on.”

“The Romanoff Trials are a test that has been used for generations to decide which Romanoff heir should take over the Bratva. It’s tradition, I guess. A nasty tradition.”

“So Ilyasov wants to challenge you?” I ask. “After everything that has happened, he wants to a one-on-one duel? That seems oddly gentlemanly of him.”

“It’s not quite that… straightforward,” he sighs.

Before he can explain, Gennady interrupts. “It’s the fucking rental car. The one Ilyasov gave you. It’s got a tracker.”

Dima growls in frustration. “Shit. I wasn’t even thinking.”

“We need to move, ASAP.”

He nods. “We’ll ditch the car here, steal a new one, and find somewhere else to hide out while we prepare.”

“To participate in some kind of ancient fight to the death?” I ask, almost not believing the turn things have taken.

“I can’t refuse. And I can’t know what the outcome will be. But if I do win… it will end this fight for good.”

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