Page 86 of Sexting the Bratva Beast
Pain in my chest.
I sit up, and the pain in my chest brings the recollections flooding back.
Cartier!
Nothing else matters.
I went to get a bottle of champagne from the fridge because she said yes. She was wearing my great-grandmother’s emerald ring. Everything felt off, but I was too elated to acknowledge it.
Mistake number fucking one.
If Cartier is hurt, I’ll spend the rest of my life hunting the fuckers down and making them wish they’d never been born. They might think they know pain, but they don’t have a fucking clue how much pain a crossed Ivanov can inflict.
I haul myself upright. I know where I am by the smell of mold and damp and the lingering stench of our enemies’ blood.
What I don’t understand is how I got here.
Blood on my sweater. If the bullet had hit any major organs, I wouldn’t be standing here now. Someone’s bad aim just cost them their life. There’s a swelling on the back of my skull, blood trickling down the back of my neck.
I’ll live.
It isn’t my life that concerns me right now.
I cross the cell to the metal bars of the door. It’s one of several built underneath the house by one of my ancestors, a man with so many enemies he had to keep some in the dungeons until he could get around to ending their lives in the manner they deserved.
The cells are situated in the tunnel, the secret escape route from the property.
The one that no one outside of family is aware of.
It’s locked.
So, someone used the tunnel to enter the house, dragged me down here, and then proceeded to lock me in. They should’ve killed me while they had the chance. They won’t get another go.
They took my gun.
But I can still feel the weapons tucked inside my socks. A pistol and a dagger.
It’s enough to work with.
The lock blows with the first bullet.
Adrenaline pumps through my veins as I make my way along the tunnel and back towards the house. Past the vault. The door is untouched. Not that I give a fuck about family jewels while my woman’s life is in danger. They can suck the fucking jewels up their squeaky fucking asses for all I care.
But if they touch Cartier…
Now I understand how my brother felt when he offered himself to the Amory family in exchange for Gianna. They broke into his home, kidnapped his woman, and then hid like the fucking cowards they are. So, he torched their warehouses, their territories, their haulage containers, and marched straight onto their land with his arms in the air.
Until then, I’d been under the misconception that love made a man weak.
That love provided a man’s enemy with a crack that they could manipulate into a gigantic fucking hole.
That love had no place amongst the Bratva.
But Leonid proved me wrong, and then Cartier wandered into my life and turned my entire world on its head.
It’s with this thought at the forefront of my mind that I climb the staircase that will lead me back inside the house.
The first thing I hear is gunfire.
