Page 109 of Tarnished Tyrant (Zhukova Bratva 1)

“Wait,” Bridget calls out reluctantly. She wheels a suitcase out from behind her desk. “This is for you, too.”

I shake my head. “That’s not mine.”

“I didn’t say it was yours,” she snaps. “I said it is for you. Nikolai called it… a ‘gift.’”

It takes actual effort for Bridget to grit out the last two words. The woman is head over heels for her boss. If she didn’t hate me so much, I’d almost feel bad for her.

I reach for the suitcase. It feels heavy. I have no clue what’s inside, but knowing Nikolai, it might be a body. Or a bomb.

Either way, I wheel it behind me onto the elevator and head back downstairs to the main lobby.

Just like Bridget said, there’s a black car waiting for me in front of the building. Through the tinted back windows, I see someone moving. I assume it’s Nikolai.

But when the door opens, a young girl slides out.

“Elise?” I blink, not computing what’s happening. “You were… I just left you at the hotel half an hour ago.”

She shrugs. “Two minutes after you left, someone knocked on the door.”

Looking at her, I can tell she didn’t have time to brush her hair. She’s still in her lounge pants and soft sleep shirt.

“What is going on?” I whisper.

“Isn’t this for work?” Elise asks, suddenly looking nervous. “I just thought, I don’t know. I thought this was Nikolai again. Isn’t it? Or—”

“It’s fine,” I tell her quickly. “You know, he told me yesterday that, uh—that I’d be doing something different today. But he wasn’t clear. So, yeah, everything is fine.”

Denial is my friend. Denial will keep us safe.

Right now, it’s also my only option. Because I can’t tell my sister what happened last night. I can’t tell her that I have no idea what we’re going to do in the next few minutes, let alone in the next few weeks and months.

I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. For right now, I’m taking whatever path is in front of me.

“Come on,” I say, urging her back into the car. “We better get going.”

“Going where?”

I shrug. “We’ll find out together. It will be… exciting.”

If free-falling without a parachute can be called exciting.

* * *

“What in the hell is going on?” Elise whispers.

She’s staring out the window, awestruck by the sight in front of us: a private jet looming large on a private airstrip. A set of metal stairs lead into the belly of the plane and a snazzily dressed flight attendant is visible just inside the door.

To be fair, I’m a little awestruck, too.

“Are we going somewhere?” she asks.

I want to come up with some kind of explanation, but I can’t come up with anything. Not a single plausible story. Instead, I hold up a finger. “Give me a second.”

Then I climb out of the car and walk towards the plane. Maybe the flight attendant will know something.

But before I can even make it to the stairs, I hear someone call my name.

“Belle.”

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