Page 3 of Married to the Don (Kornilov Bratva Duet 1)

“I don’t care.”

George looks up at me, his eyes wide. His face is wrinkled, and he looks tired. “My wife wanted to leave town as soon as I testified. She wanted to change our names, but I told her I wanted to stay.”

“That was your mistake,” I say coldly.

“Was it?” he asks. “If your father had still been in charge, I never would have dared.”

Just as I thought. I ready my finger on the trigger. Enough people have told me I’m too weak to be a boss; I don’t want to hear it from an overweight liquor store owner too. I’ll kill him before he gets the chance.

“But you’re fair,” he says, surprising me.

I let the gun slip slightly as he talks.

“At least, I believed you to be a fair man,” he says. “It’s the only reason I kept my family here. Because I didn’t think you would kill me for telling the truth.”

He meets my eyes for another second before looking back down at the floor, and I’m glad. I don’t want him to see what I’m going to do next.

* * *

As I walk backinto the parking lot, a man is idling in front of the store, squinting towards the store hours. That sign says it should be open, but the neon one is dark. He rolls down his window. “Are you open?”

If he’d gotten out and tried the door, he would have found it unlocked, but he didn’t. He asked me. So, I shake my head. “Nope.”

The man curses under his breath. “Update your hours!” he yells as he screeches out of the parking lot, in search of another place to quench his late-night thirst.

I just cost George some business, but he isn’t in any state to care.

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