Page 46 of Bratva Sacrifice

Her lower lip thrusts out in a pout, already spicy again to have been so commanded. “I’m hungry,” she says. “It’s past dinner time, isn’t it?”

Long past. But this is no problem. “I will send dinner to you,” I tell her. “What do you want?”

“Sweet wine,” she says, and in the purse of her lips I can see her contriving to make herself as demanding and difficult as possible out of sheer stubbornness. “Blini and caviar. Beef Wellington. Lobster and scallops. And cheesecake for dessert. A whole one.”

She is so fucking adorable when she is trying to be irritating. “You cannot eat a whole cheesecake by yourself, Katya.”

“I can try.” She climbs up onto her knees, dragging the blankets with her as she eases toward me. “Strawberry cheesecake, specifically.”

A laugh shakes my shoulders. “Okay, koshechka. Strawberry cheesecake. Specifically.”

She squints at me in rank suspicion, as if she cannot believe how easily I have acquiesced to her absurd requests. “Really? It takes like, eight hours to make a cheesecake.”

It is not the first time Katya has requested cheesecake. Probably there is one already made, waiting upon her request. But if not, someone will go buy one. “You will have your cheesecake, Katya,” I assure her, and I slide my fingers into her disheveled hair and cup the nape of her neck in my hand. “And maybe tomorrow, I take you out.”

Her gold brows lift. “Out?” she asks, as if she no longer knows the meaning of this word. “Like out out?”

“Da. Out out. Since you are going—what did you say?”

“Stir crazy,” she says absently. With one hand she reaches out and plucks at the chain around my neck, catching the medallion between her fingers. There is a little crease in her brow, a twist to the corner of her lips. I know what she is thinking.

She could try to run from me. But does she want to? Is her life here so bad? Does she hate me as much as once she did? Where would she go that I could not find her? What does it mean for her if her cage is not so much a prison anymore?

I think she worries more about these things than I do. Whether she even has the answers to these questions. What the significance of them might be.

With her thumb she rubs my medallion. “What is this?” she asks.

“Icon pendant. Of St. Nicholas.”

Her face scrunches. “Like Santa Claus? You wear a Santa Claus pendant?”

I chuckle. “Not quite, koshechka.” Even if St. Nicholas is the inspiration for this fairy tale. “St. Nicholas is patron saint of repentant thieves.”

Katya’s cheeks puff out in an annoyed expression, and she drops the medal to shove at my shoulder. “Please,” she says as she flops once more onto her back on the bed and sets about making herself comfortable once more. “You’ve never been repentant a day in your life.”

“For what should I be repentant, Katya?” I ask her, and I pinch her chin in my fingers to kiss the scowl off of her lips before she can begin to list my sins out to me. “Be a good girl for me,” I tell her, and she flips me off with both hands as I leave her.

∞∞∞

Piotr is intelligent enough to realize something is wrong immediately. Ivan, of course, is a goddamned fucking moron.

Ivan swaggers in late, more than half-drunk already. Like he has forgotten that Anatoli told him hours ago to be here tonight. Like he remembered only halfway through a bottle of vodka. Not just vodka, I think—the size of his pupils indicates he has probably also been snorting cocaine.

I don’t care, usually, what drugs my associates do. But Ivan is one of my drug runners, and if this is how he presents himself to me on an average Tuesday night, I think maybe he has been helping himself to the product he is meant to move. Probably not much, but theft is theft—though this will not matter after tonight.

Piotr sits quietly at my table as Ivan attempts to engage him in conversation, like they are equals. He gives stilted, monotone responses, his jaw flexing with strain. Ivan is fairly new in my employ; only six months or so. But Piotr has come with me to Chicago from Moscow. He has done good work for many years. He knows what it means to be called to this table at such a time. I know he is replaying his actions, reflecting upon his offense.

It is two weeks after Katya’s little stroll through my house. I had the security tapes collected immediately, so that no one else would see them, no one else could tamper with them. Probably he thought his offense was not so great. Probably he thought, after all this time, he was safe.

Stupid fucking bastard. Orders were given; those same orders disregarded. No one fucks with what is mine. There is no time limit upon my wrath.

Anatoli stands silently behind me. I do not have to see him to know even he is pissed off with Ivan’s idiotic chatter. I reach for my gun—retrieved earlier from the safe in my office and tucked into my waistband—and slam it onto the table. “Shut your fucking mouth, Ivan,” I snarl in Russian.

Ivan jumps in surprise, but I think maybe he is too high to understand. He stares at the gun, but he does not grasp its meaning.

Piotr does. He begins to babble frantic apologies, something that mystifies Ivan, whose brows pinch together in confusion.

“You were warned,” I tell him, and my voice cracks over the room like thunder. Piotr flinches. Ivan stares in that same vacant, stupid way. “You were told you do not interfere with my business.”