Page 53 of Bratva Bidder
We push out through the side exit into the night air. The door clicks shut behind us, swallowing the noise of the party like a lid sealing on something rotting.
I already have my phone out, dialing her.
One ring.
Two.
Three.
No answer. Straight to voicemail.
I don’t say anything. I just hang up and dial again. The same silence. The same void.
Lev stands beside me, scanning the narrow garden path that curves around the side of the building, bordered by hedges and lit only by scattered ground lights.
“Maybe she just needed air,” he says. “Did she say anything to you?”
“No.”
And she would’ve.
Wouldn’t she?
He starts walking ahead, and I follow, something tightening in my chest with every step.
Then Lev stops abruptly. There, half-hidden near the base of a trimmed hedge, something lies in the dirt.
One heel. Red silk strap. Broken at the buckle.
My stomach drops.
Lev crouches and picks it up slowly, turning it over in his hand. “She was wearing this tonight, yeah?”
I nod once.
He looks at me, then gives me that little smile of his—the one that never really reaches his eyes. “Maybe she ran to someone. A boyfriend?”
The words hang in the air like a slap.
I don’t respond.
Can’t.
Because the thought sinks in quick and ugly, coiling inside my chest, wrapping around my ribs.
Another man? Is that why she left?
Someone else she’d risk her safety for.
Someone who could make her run without looking back.
I clench my jaw hard enough that I taste blood.
“No,” I say finally. “She wouldn’t.”
I just don’t know why I believe it.
For a second, I think about calling Pyotr.
