Page 146 of Shattered Cradle (Makarova Bratva Duet)

“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” I say as confidently as I can. “First, the door.”

I pray for strength as Yulia fumbles with the keys on the ring. Flicking past one after another after another.

My heartbeat quickens until it hurts. I can hardly breathe.

“Here we are,” she says, finally producing a small silver key. “I think this is it.”

She moves towards the door. Surely there will be nothing behind it, right? I trust him. I gave him my heart. So we’ll open this door and the room will be empty and everything will be absolved.

It has to happen like that.

I watch in silent terror as Yulia turns the key in the door. Her hands are trembling wildly. I feel a stab of pity for her. She’s enslaved by the ties she has to her son, but she desperately wants to do the right thing, if only she can figure out what that thing is.

We’re both trapped in our own kind of cage.

She pushes open the door and steps aside. I walk in with my breath trapped in my lungs.

My eyes go straight to her.

The young girl lying on the bed.

Dear God. It’s true.

34

OLIVIA

Mia knew.

Rob knew.

Hargrove knew.

Everyone knew, and they warned me. And I still didn’t listen.

“No,” I whisper to myself as I approach the little girl’s bedside. “No, no, no.”

She’s so damn young. No older than thirteen or fourteen. Asleep like this, she looks even younger.

Her hair is a glossy blonde and her cheeks still have that rosy plumpness of pre-adolescence. She’s definitely breathing. That, at least, is a relief.

I push my feelings for Aleks to the side. I don’t have time to walk that minefield right now. I need to use the adrenaline pumping through my veins to figure out how to get this little girl out of here and away from the beautiful monster I’m married to.

I turn to Yulia, who is standing by the foot of the bed looking pale-faced and teetering on the edge of panic. I grab her hands and force her to look at me.

“Yulia, we need to get her out of here.”

She turns to me slowly, but it’s like she’s looking through me, not at me. “How did you know she was in here?”

“It doesn’t matter now. What matters is that we get her out as fast as possible. Aleks is gone. He said he’d be gone for a while, but that was over an hour ago now. We need to get moving.”

“He’ll know what we did,” she whispers. “When he comes back and finds her gone, he’ll know.”

“We’ll be gone by then, too.”

Her eyes connect with mine. “Gone?”

“Yulia, you can’t possibly want to continue to live in this house after this.”

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