Page 109 of Silent Heart

Blood roared in my ears. I couldn’t move. Couldn’tbreathe!Someone had been in my room!

“Harley?” Cami appeared at my side.

Footsteps pounded down the hall.

“He can’t know!” I hissed. “Please, Cami, don’t tell the Russians about this!”

Thinking fast, Cami rushed inside my room, snatched the paper, and shoved it in her jeans pocket, while tossing the knife onto my bed. “He went that way!”

Pavel glared at us, peering into the room. “What was that scream for?”

“I squeaked, not screamed,” I gasped.

“That way!” Cami pointed at the wardrobe. “Pavel, can you move it?”

The bushy dark brows drew together. “Do you mind telling mewhyyou want me to move the wardrobe?”

“There’s a bug.” Cami got on her hands and knees, flashing her cell light under the piece of furniture. “Harley, go into the bathroom, grab some tissue and cleaner spray. If I can spray him, he’ll leave.”

Robotically, I obeyed. She was thinking better under pressure than me.Come on, you’re going to be a vet.

“Do you two have this under control?” Pavel grumped. “Or do I need to call in the big guns?”

At those words, I froze. My foot was halfway over the bathroom threshold.

“We’re good, but you’re supposed to sweep our rooms before you go for the night,” Cami snapped.

Her sharp tone sent me rushing forward. I looked in the bathroom, glanced into her room on the other side, but didn’t see any more threatening notes. Pavel sauntered past me, throwing me a curious glance.

“There could be more bugs,” I gulped.

Pavel looked around, ascertained we were safe, and then left through Cami’s hall door.

I sagged against our double bathroom vanity.

Cami Joe padded forward. “So. Want to tell me what that was all about?”

I winced. “Someone threatened me.”

“Okay,” Cami said slowly. “Walk me through it.”

The whole story tumbled from my mouth. How I’d been snagged between classes. I described the cold man in the suit, who Cami didn’t recognize. Fresh dread slithered down my spine when I told her about his threat against my family.

Every day this week, I’d been on high alert. I kept close to groups of students when I traveled from class to class.

“I thought it was odd when you didn’t want to study at the library,” Cami muttered.

“Sorry,” I breathed. “But if Kolya knows he put me in danger, he’ll run again. That’s why he ended it before. I won’t tell him now.”

“But we need them to stop this.”

“I know!” I sank to the floor, dropping my hands into my head. “What am I going to do, Cami? I’m not good at fighting. I’m a fish out of water in this world. But I don’t want to lose Kolya again.”

“So here’s what you need to know about Kolya.”

A long, terrible tale tumbled from Cami’s mouth. Before the bratva, before she became a Vlasov, she was just a girl living in the ghetto, trying to survive a shitty school district high school, a junkie mom, and life on the wrong side of the tracks. Her saving grace were her cousins and grandmother. Then her beautiful, talented dancing ballerina of a cousin was abducted. They found out later she was thrown into a human trafficking ring. There had been no hope for Cady, no angel in the dark to save her.

“We had a funeral, and it nearly broke nonna. She wouldn’t come out of her room for days. Dani ghosted about life, but I noticed the day a fire lit in her eyes. She went to find her revenge, but knew she couldn’t fight the demons on her own. She went to the biggest, scariest man she could find.”

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