Page 97 of The Bratva Betrayal

Killian is going to lose his mind.

Rian is going to be very, very calm, which is worse.

And Misha Makarov will find out what it means to put his hands on a Gallagher.

I smooth my wet hair back from my face and walk into the bedroom.

Then I jump when I see Artem standing in the middle of it, still in his suit.

His eyes go to my face.

“How did you get in?” I question, but there’s no anger in my voice. Why bother? He’s going to do what he wants to do.

“Who did that?”

His voice is kind of quiet that I’ve learned means the opposite of calm.

“I’m fine.” I move past him toward my dresser, pull open the top drawer and search for something to throw on.

“You didn’t have that when you left tonight.”

“Observant.”

“Lisichka,” he warns, “turn around.”

Instead, I pull out a sleep shirt.

“It’s late,” I say. “I’m tired. Whatever you need, can⁠—“

“Turn. Around.”

I hear him cross the room and stop in front of me.

His hand comes up slowly, giving me every opportunity to move, and his fingers brush along my jaw, tilting my face toward the light.

I don’t know why I let him. I’ve been letting him do things all night that I can’t explain.

He looks at my bruised face, and the silence is suffocating.

“Who?” he says very quietly. “Tell me his name like I don’t already know it.”

Does he know?

Artem doesn’t make threats the way other men do, he just states things.

Plainly, finally, with the certainty of an enforcer who has never said something he didn’t mean.

I look at him for a moment. He appears dead set on getting an answer.

I’m not telling him yet.

Not because I’m protecting Misha. Because I don’t want Artem stepping in before I decide what to do with this.

“I’ve had a gun under my chin,” I say. “His hands have been on me. I’ve stood in my kitchen and watched him fuck another woman against my counter like I wasn’t standing three feet away.” I hold his gaze. “I’m standing in my bedroom in a towel with a black eye, and I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want to think about it.”

“I didn’t ask for all that yet,” he grinds out. “I asked who?”

Lifting my chin higher, I blurt the next words that come to mind before I can think better of them. “You’re going to have to fuck the name out of me, big man.”