Page 14 of Fractured Ties

He held it.

It burned.

Inhale.

Exhale.

Finally, after half the cigarette was gone and all Kolya could taste in his mouth was smoke and ash and vodka, he turned to Konstantin and asked, “Where did she go?”

Konstantin blinked. “Who?”

“Her—the woman. Behind the bar, Konstantin. Where did she go?”

“I don’t—”

“Maya,” Anatoly said.

Kolya visibly stiffened on the stool. His shoulders knotted together with a ball of tension, and his hand curled into a tight ball against the bar top. A sure sign he was getting ready to put that fucking fist to use for some kind of violence that was going to hurt. It wasn’t even Anatoly or his voice that put Kolya on that fast track to thinking about death again, but rather, her name coming out of his mouth like he had any business saying it.

Like a switch in his head.

On, or off.

On, then off.

Something was fucking flipping that goddamn switch and Kolya didn’t know how to fucking handle it. Not at all. He didn’t even understand why it was happening.

Anatoly didn’t notice Kolya’s reaction.

Konstantin did. “Brat.”

His gaze cut to Konstantin. “Did you see where she went?”

“I barely noticed her at all, Kolya.”

That was good for Konstantin.

The whole switch-flipping thing.

Bad for Kolya.

“Went out there,” Kaz said, coming into the conversation. Kolya glanced up from the empty glass of vodka he’d finished to see Kaz pointing at a door built in between the two shelving units behind the bar. “After the guy told her to beat it.”

Kaz had heard that?

Huh.

“Her father,” Anatoly said. “Ivan is her father.”

“Was,” Kolya corrected roughly.

Throats cleared around him.

“What’s that lead to?” he asked after a second.

He posed the question to Anatoly because he was likely the only stupid fuck in the room who had any clue about this place. Sure, Kolya had a few memories of the layout, but shit changed when things called for it.

There were another two doors on the other side of the bar—across from the one they’d first come in through. Kolya remembered those being used to allow guests into the fighting section of the warehouse, while the other one allowed certain people into the spot where some of the animals were held before the fights.