I waited, my coronary heart beginning to hammer now. I waited for what felt like a very long time after which I heard the sound of a automobile coming in our path. Apart from Mary’s mild snores, it seemed like the one noise for miles. There was a mild however extraordinarily agency twang sound, after which a terrific screeching of brakes and the sound of a automobile rolling over an embankment, turning on its facet and smashing each tree on the best way down a steep hill.

I heard the sound of glass shattering after which silence.

Dmitri acquired again within the automobile.

I used to be fairly positive this meant that nobody was following us anymore, however I didn’t ask and Dmitri didn’t clarify.

The following morning, we arrived on the farthest secure home. It was an opulent three-story cabin up in opposition to the Taiga, Russia’s big snow forest. I regarded out the window to see infinite brilliant evergreen bushes and good blue rivers. It felt like part of Russia that everybody else had forgotten about. After all, even a secure home that hadn’t been utilized in years needed to be absolutely the top of luxurious and energy for the Petrovics. This was no unused and dusty shack, and it was clearly repeatedly maintained by Grigoriy in case it was wanted.

Dmitri and the lads did a test of the home whereas Mary and I stayed within the automobile, however it was secure, clear, and totally stocked. I used to be blissful to stretch my legs as soon as he allow us to get out. There was an enormous yard that swept as much as the home and the forest proper to the again of the cabin, with a terraced backyard that separated the huge flat entrance garden from the again garden that went steeply as much as the forest.

Then Dmitri went to ship a message to the Pakhan that we have been all proper, and Mary and I went inside. We’d be right here a minimum of an evening or two.

I used to be relieved to have the ability to lastly take a bathe, after which Mary and I dug across the kitchen to see what we may prepare dinner. I wasn’t the most effective prepare dinner on this planet, however Mary took inventory of the kitchen after which stated virtually, “potato soup.”

Rattling. I favored her practicality. No complaining about what couldn’t be helped. This needed to be a bizarre and unnerving expertise for her, getting thrown right into a limousine and brought throughout half the nation into the Taiga.

And right here she was, beginning to peel potatoes and get blocks of cheese from the fridge.

Though she was nonetheless nervous, dropping a couple of potatoes on the bottom, she was in a position to deal with the duty at hand.

The extra I talked to Mary, the extra I favored her. She dressed like she needed to cover her physique, in extraordinarily dishevelled, unpleasantly-colored skirts and tops. However she was tall and willowy, with that pretty thick auburn hair and inexperienced eyes of an uncommon, vivid colour. Her pores and skin was creamy and glowing and, in contrast to me, she had lengthy, elegant legs and arms and a flat abdomen. Underneath her nerves and fears she was a sort, candy particular person, too.

I briefly thought-about her for Dmitri. However he was such a stoic, taciturn sort of particular person. He could be extra more likely to frighten her than the rest.

She was simply the type of lady Frederik wanted. Somebody who wasn’t after his cash, somebody artistic, somebody who could be cool and sensible about the truth that Frederik benefited from a brutal, vicious Bratva group.

If solely he wasn’t so pigheaded about getting married.

10

ANDREI

The place the fuck may Dmitri be? I ponder, torturing myself again and again with the identical fears about Cerise, letting the fear scrape up and down my pores and skin like I’m being flayed open with a whip.

I’ve barely eaten in days. Ever because the day of the assault. I can’t eat, I can’t sleep.

I don’t know the place Cerise is.

Irrespective of what number of instances my father assures me that Dmitri should have taken her with him, it’s torturing me not figuring out the place she is.

Dmitri and his males are the one senior members of the Bratva who’re unaccounted for. The process is for him to test in when it’s secure, utilizing code. The truth that he hasn’t checked in but signifies that both it hasn’t been secure or he’s useless.

And Dmitri higher fucking not be useless if he’s the one one there to guard Cerise.

The concept that she could be someplace, damage or taken or useless, is unendurable to me. The concern claws at my mind, digs into my cranium.

I’m within the weapons room compulsively cleansing my knives and weapons. There’s an ongoing investigation into the safety breach, however I can’t deal with something besides discovering Cerise. It’s clear that Boris was killed to make sure his silence, however I’m positive there may be another, maybe nonetheless in our group, who betrayed us for cash. We might should undergo each single particular person even remotely linked to the Bratva to search out out who it’s.

All of the sudden I hear the intercom within the nook crackle, and my father’s voice comes by way of it.

“There’s a name in code coming in,” he says, and I’m instantly out of my chair and heading all the way down to his workplace.

Once I arrive my father is beginning to translate the code, the faucets and clicks on the opposite finish of the road loud in his workplace. He is aware of the code by coronary heart, doesn’t even want a key to know what’s being stated, however he copies out the code rigorously. The particular person on the opposite finish repeats every phrase twice, to ensure he’s gotten it.

It’s fucking acquired to be Dmitri on the opposite finish of the road. Nobody else could possibly be so infuriatingly sluggish and deliberate.

And if Cerise is unharmed, it is going to be as a result of Dmitri saved her. Not me.

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