Page 115 of Shattered Altar (Makarova Bratva Duet)

I nearly laugh out loud in disbelief. A mansion in Paris? And she said no? Rich people are a whole different kind of crazy.

“Because this is my home!” she cries out. “This place is my home and I’m not leaving it. I deserve to have a life outside of this Bratva without having to sacrifice everything else in the process.”

“That’s fine. Leave the house, don’t leave the house, I don’t give a fuck. But family business stays under this roof.”

“What do you take me for?”

“A woman who wants attention,” he retorts sharply.

Ouch. Even I wince at that. Their relationship is obviously a lot more complicated than I first realized. There’s bitterness between them. A rotting, festering kind of resentment.

Aleks sighs and puts his head in his hands. “This isn’t a lecture, Mother. I’m not trying to micromanage your life. I’m just saying—”

“Saying what, precisely, Aleksandr?”

He wrenches his head upright. “That spineless motherfucker will be on the prowl for newsworthy stories. If he gets wind of the investigation or—”

“Or what?” Yulia taunts. “The fact that you have a young woman here against her will?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he lies coldly. “Olivia is my wife.”

“You haven’t spent one night with her since you got married. On second thought, sounds like the marriage I had with your father.”

“As you’ve said so often, I learned from the best.”

I cringe at the vicious barbs flying back and forth between them. Yulia is getting in some damage of her own, but she’s much too worked-up and emotional to retain the upper hand. Her son, by contrast, is perfectly calm.

“What else are you scared of, Aleks?” she asks, her voice getting lower and lower until I can barely hear it. “Worried that he’ll find out your dirty little secrets? The women…”

I freeze on the spot. Are they talking about Isabella?

But Yulia said “women.” Plural. Are those the same women Rob was referring to?

“Enough!” Aleks roars. “Don’t say another fucking word, Mother.”

I take that as my cue to leave. If he storms out unexpectedly, he’ll catch me eavesdropping, and then there will be hell to pay.

My heart is beating so hard that it’s all I can hear as I slip out of sight and climb the staircase up towards the second floor.

I avoid the maid cleaning one of the sitting rooms and slip into the next room instead. I don’t know what exactly I’m looking for.

But I know something: if I look long enough, I’m certain I’ll find it.

---