Page 78 of Trapped By the Bratva

“Then you shouldn’t have opened your damn mouth at all now, huh? This is what you get. This is Karma, Melissa, for not leaving it all alone.”

“I can’t change what’s done.”

“I told you at the coffee place that it was the last time. Use that money to get out of New York.”

She exhaled harshly. “That was weeks ago! That money is all gone!”

“That’s not my problem.”

A low growl sounded over the phone. She was losing her temper, and this call would be ending awfully damn soon with that attitude. “Hannah! Don’t be so selfish. Help me, please.”

You will never stop. As long as you breathe, you will request more and more without any regard for me.

“You will never have any way to contact me, ever again.” I’d make sure of it. I’d ask Dmitri to start me up with a new line and phone and I wouldn’t share those details with my sister. She’d pushed too far this time.

“Fine! I just need enough to get out of here. When can you come?”

I gritted my teeth, glancing at the time. “Twenty minutes. The same coffee place.”

“No. Our old apartment,” she countered.

“Whatever.” Then I hung up as quickly as I could. After finding a notepad, I jotted down the basic facts of what happened with her calls, where I was going, and why. I felt uneasy to leave without Dmitri knowing where I’d taken off to.

Surely, his meeting would be done soon, and I could update him with all of this information. For all those times he’d called me out as a bad liar, I was giddy to show him that I really disliked sharing falsehoods with him. I was all in with him. I wouldn’t hide any clues from him even if I wished he’d give up his need to seek revenge before something bad happened.

And while I’m out, I can pick up a pregnancy test to be able to confirm it.

26

DMITRI

“Iknow it’s not ideal,” Alek said with a measured and cautious glance at me across the table, “but it seems like the best option.”

I exhaled steadily through my nose, refusing to comment.

We would officially back off from going after Avilov. That was what this meeting was called for.

They had a solid lead on Erik Avilov. Finally, the man who tortured me was showing up and lingering somewhere in New York City. On our turf. Part of the reason the Avilovs were so hard to pin down was because they didn’t operate strictly out of the States. Lev Avilov preferred his yachts and staying at sea, and most of his men ran businesses in an international sense. That was also, I presumed, why the FBI and countless other law enforcement agencies around the world wanted to get the new leader. It wasn’t just here that they committed crimes. They weren’t selective to kidnap and torture enemies and get in the middle of existing feuds with other crime families here. It was something they had their hands in all over the world.

“Freeman has more resources to follow Avilov,” Maxim said, also glancing at me as though he counted on my disliking what he had to say. “Buttane was after Lev Avilov for decades. Freeman’s been on the case too. Others are as well.”

“It sounds like we’re jumping in on their efforts,” Nik added.

Alek nodded. “I can see it in that light too.”

I sighed. “So we can’t ‘take’ this one. That’s what you’re saying?” It killed me to let someone else capture Erik Avilov. To allow someone else to be the executioner of that sadist.

I hated that I wouldn’t be the one to end the man’s life, and I doubted this aftertaste of disappointment would fade soon.

But I understood what they were concerned about.

So many others wanted to bring Avilov down. We were “new” to this game. Avilov hadn’t been a rival before Sergei Kastava approached them for funding and support to attack us. Before then, the Avilov outfit hadn’t been on our minds or part of any of our agendas.

It would cause more problems if we took over this situation. If Alek told Freeman and all the other agents to fuck off, that his brother wanted dibs on killing Erik, we’d instigate more issues to deal with in the long run. Looking at it from a different perspective, I realized that I didn’t have any real claim to killing Avilov. I was only the most recent victim, one among so many.

“The Feds sound like they’ve been determined to learn more about the Avilov organization for a long time. The whole thing. All of them and their many subsidiaries,” Maxim said. “They don’t just want Erik Avilov.” He looked me in the eye. “And trustme, I want to kill that fucker for ever trying to hurt Nadia on top of what he did to you.”

“All of us do, Dmitri. You know that,” Nik said.

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