Page 56 of Shattered Altar (Makarova Bratva Duet)

“Yet you broke up with him,” I point out. “And then you fucked me in an airplane bathroom.”

She goes bright red once more and looks away from me. She’s so self-conscious all the time. All it would take is for me to bend her over now and fuck her until she realizes that there’s no point to self-doubt. No purpose for awkwardness.

The only thing to do is give in.

“I… I was trying to do something… something…”

“That made you feel alive,” I fill in. “You wanted to know how it felt to come undone. And I showed you, didn’t I?”

I can see it written on her face: her emotion is getting the best of her. She’s regretting asking to talk to me. She just wants to be alone now, to reflect on her life, her choices. The ones that led her here and the ones she never got the chance to make.

“My family means the world to me, Aleks,” she says softly. “They’re the ones that make me feel alive. I… wouldn’t know what to do if something were to happen to them. Just, please… promise me they’ll be okay.”

I touch my fingers to her jaw and push her chin up so she’s forced to meet my eyes. “I don’t make promises I can’t keep, Olivia.”

She whimpers. “My brother’s a good man. He’s spent his whole life doing the right thing. Following the rules, upholding the law.”

“The law?” I repeat. “The laws are made by the very men who break them, Olivia. He’s wasted his life following a bunch of rules that were never intended to help anyone in the first place.”

“Fine,” she says in defeat. “Let’s say that’s true. What about kindness? Isn’t that worth something?”

“You expect me to go easy on your brother because you believe he’s a good man?” I laugh. “A good person?”

“He is.”

“And I suppose in your world, the hero always wins and the villain gets his just desserts?”

She shakes her head. “No, not that. I stopped believing in fairytales when my father died. There’s no happy ending without him.”

That takes me by surprise. I raise my eyebrows, staring at the loss etched across her face.

I have a thick file on the Lawrence family sitting in my desk drawer as we speak. That file told me that Bradley Lawrence died more than seven years ago. Olivia would’ve been a teen then. So much time has passed.

And yet the loss is still fresh. The raw pain boils in Olivia’s eyes, scalding.

“Your father is dead, Olivia. What’s the point in acting like you are, too?”

“He… he was our rock,” she murmurs without looking up. “And when he passed, Rob became that rock for us.”

I nod. “Exactly. Then you wouldn’t want to lose him, too, would you?”

She recognizes the threat in my voice. Her jaw trembles. She raises her gaze up at me, her hazel eyes going round with fear. “Would you really kill him?”

“I think we’ve already established that I will do whatever I need to do to protect my interests. And what’s more, I will get away with it.”

“Let me talk to Rob,” she tries again. “I’ll tell him to recuse himself from the investigation. I… I can solve this.”

I shake my head. “That won’t be enough. He has to end the investigation. Otherwise, some other agent will be assigned to it, and this cycle will begin anew.”

“But… but… but…”

I turn away from her and head back to my desk. “You’ll get a phone call with your brother when I feel it’s necessary. For right now, it’s not.”

“But—”

“You can go back to your room now.”

She breaks off mid-sentence, her expression twisting with failure. “That’s it?”

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