Page 23 of Bratva, Baby
“Don’t come near me,” I say, trying to keep my voice steady. “You’re fucking crazy.”
“I warned you that I don’t share, and I have told you what that meant multiple times. It isn’t my fault that you took my warnings with a grain of salt.” He says, coming closer to me despite my protests.
“Don’t come any closer,” I say, backing into something hard. Looking over my shoulder, I see it is one of Andrei’s men. Instead of grabbing me, though, he just stands there. The intimidation tactic works, and I turn back to face Andrei, who has stopped right in front of me.
Looking past me, he tells the man, “Administer the adrenaline while I talk to my flighty ptichka.”
I want to watch what he is doing to Ivan, but Andrei grabs my chin, “You don’t need to care about what is happening to him. His fate is set in motion already.”
Dropping his hand, he turns around in time for Ivan to gasp awake. I’ve only read about this kind of thing in books, but this is not an experience I wish to repeat.
“Ah, Ivan, glad you could rejoin the land of the living. See, I wasn’t finished when you passed out, and I can’t have that.”Andrei says, walking back over to grab the axe. Now I understand why Ivan said he didn’t think I belonged in the bratva world. This is brutal.
Andrei begins again, but this time bringing the axe down about six inches above the nub of his left leg, then repeating the same motion for the right side.
“Now, before you bleed out completely, you lose your life because you took what was mine.”
Everything goes black, and I pass out.
Andrei
I look over at the sound of Ava collapsing to the floor; I don’t rush over to her since it would only traumatize her more with what I’m about to do. Grabbing the axe, I look at the slumped-over Ivan. His breaths are shallow and coming less often; he won’t be in this world long.
I bring the axe up and continue to bring it down on his legs again, this time on his knees, severing the pieces from the rest of him. I continue the motion until he stops blubbering and the rise and fall of his chest stops. He’s dead. He will serve as a message to anyone else who thinks of aiding her inleaving me.
Having accomplished my goal, I look over to Timofy, who stands near Ava but doesn’t touch her. This kind of message sinks in quickly; he won’t be an issue where my little bird is concerned.
Walking over to Ava, I lean down and pick up her limp body. I may have needed to teach her a lesson as well, but that doesn’t make her any less mine to care for. For a moment there, I thought she was going to vomit, but she seemed to hold firm, all the way until it came to Ivan losing his life.
Now I know where her tolerance is; she handled the situation a lot better than I thought she would, but not once did she turn to run, though.
Looking at Timofy, I tell him, “Go pull the car around. We will wait for you at the door.” I say as we head to the front of the warehouse.
Timofy makes it to the SUV and starts it. Seconds later, I hear a ticking sound come from beneath the car, and before I can react, the car explodes. The blast kills Timofy instantly and throws Ava and me backwards, knocking the breath out of me.
Ava lands on top of me, thank the Universe I didn’t lose my grip during the explosion, keeping her from slamming her head onto the concrete lot where we usually park.
As I gather my senses, I begin to process what the fuck just happened. Someone planted a bomb in my car, most likelyaiming to kill me, but they would have killed Ava, too. Again, someone has almost taken my little bird from me, and though I would have followed her, I need to know if this is part of the Italians' plan.
Sirens wail in the distance; you can’t exactly hide a car bomb from people seeing and hearing the blast. I need to leave and call my contact at the fire department to get the investigator on our payroll. If he refuses our money, I will convince him in another way.
With the explosion, all my men ran from the building to check the chaos, Alek getting to us first as I still lay on the ground. “Andrei!” He yells as he sees me lying on the ground. Running toward us, he crouches on the ground to check and asks, “What the fuck happened? Are you ok, Boss?”
“Da, I am ok, but I want Ava checked by Dr. Drummond regardless. She passed out watching me kill Ivan, and now the blast, and she has yet to wake up.” I say, concern lacing my voice.
“Are you sure you shouldn’t be checked out as well?” He asks.
“I am sure, I just want to make sure that Ava is ok, she had a hard lesson to learn before this, where she passed out and hasn’t woken up yet,” I explain to my best friend. “Call for Drummond to come to my penthouse to check on her. We need to get out of here and start making calls.”
“Da, we will get that done, but we need to get you there first.” Before I can start issuing commands, Alek takes over, standing up and announcing to the men to check the rest of the cars for signs of being tampered with.He is genuinely a good friend and a loyal person.
After receiving the all clear, we pile into the various vehicles and head back to my penthouse, where hopefully Drummond will already be waiting for us. It has been a long day, and it is still only noon. Ava has a lot to react to before we settle into the normal that will be her new life.
After fighting the noon-time traffic, we finally arrive at my penthouse to see that Dr Drummond is, in fact, waiting for us in my opulent kitchen.
“Thank you for coming,” I say, carrying Ava into my bedroom to lay her down. On the way down the hall, I explain to Drummond what happened right before Ava passed out and the car bomb since, and he takes over as I lay her on my bed.
He proceeds to pull out a blood pressure cuff and other home medical devices and checks her vitals. After checking over everything, he tells me she needs to sleep it off and to call him back when she wakes up.
