Page 130 of Bratva's Vow
Nik nodded, gave Wren a pat on his shoulder, and disappeared. Wren looked back at me, his hazel eyes serious. He was back to fiddling, this time with the throw.
“I won’t be gone for long,” I said.
Hopefully.
He held out his hand to me, and I took it, squeezed it. He tightened his fingers around mine. “Come back to me.”
I leaned in, pressing my forehead to his. The heat of him, the soft puff of his breath on my lips. I closed my eyes.
“I’ll always try,” I whispered. “Even if it's bloodied and crawling.”
He made a sound in the back of his throat. Something like a sob.
“I’ll never understand why you love me so much.”
I opened my eyes and looked at him. This boy who’d burrowed into the darkest corners of me and made them come to light.
“I don’t think I know how to do anything else.”
I kissed his temple, lingered for a beat longer than I should have, then left.
Nik drove, the silence between us dense, broken only by the soft thrum of the tires against asphalt. My phone buzzed in my coat pocket. A text message from Wren that he loves me. My heart seized in my chest, a whisper of warmth curling around it. I resisted responding and slipped my phone back into my pocket. I needed my wits about me. Thinking about Wren left me soft.
We headed toward the east side, one of those aging apartment blocks where the rent was cheap and the neighbors knew better than to ask questions. We pulled up to the curb, headlights cutting through a half-lit street. The building loomed ahead, four stories of cracked stucco and rust-streaked balconies. Sergei was waiting outside. He flicked his cigarette to the ground and stomped it out when we approached.
“Surveillance?” I asked.
“Jammed. Since I got here,” Sergei said. “No footage in or out.”
He handed me a black cloth mask. I slipped it on without question. Nik followed closely, expression unreadable, hands in his pockets but never far from his weapon. We took the stairs two at a time, third floor. Sergei opened the door.
The apartment reeked.
Not just of death—though that was thick and coppery in the air—but of stale sweat, rot, and the sweet-sour stench of narcotics.
“They lived here?” I asked.
Sergei nodded. “Roommates. Maybe more. Didn’t find a lease, but their names are on shared mail, and there’s only one bedroom.”
The living room was small, littered with old takeout containers and half-burned candles. Two doors led off to the sides. Sergei motioned left. I followed.
The bedroom was a mess of tangled sheets and blood.
The first man was sprawled halfway on the bed, facedown. Blood soaked through the thin mattress, congealing into black around him. His shirt was shredded from multiple stab wounds, a dozen or more, centered around the back and ribs.
“This is the one who made the call.” Sergei stepped around the blood. He held up a phone. “Call log matches.”
I crouched beside the body. The stab wounds werefrenzied. Not professional. Not clean. Someone had wanted him to suffer.
“What’s his name?”
“Philip Malik. He’s a petty criminal. Mostly local work.”
The other man—Malik’s so-called roommate—was slumped against the wall, a pistol still loosely held in his hand, dried blood sprayed in an arc behind him. His face was gone, most of it anyway. It had been an upward angle shot. Intentional. No hesitation.
“We think he did it?” I asked.
“That’s how it looks. We think he might have found out Malik intended to turn him over to us for the five million reward.” Sergei motioned to the nightstand. Inside were several vials, unlabeled. A dirty spoon. A bent lighter.
