Page 174 of Ripped Veil (Ripped Bratva)

“She ID’d us?”

“She sure as hell did. And there are pictures of both you and Elyssa, placing you at the event last night. Only two snapshots, the two of you in the background, walking towards the elevators. Your face is almost completely hidden from view. But…”

I look up, frowning. “But what?”

“But Elyssa wasn’t so lucky.” Matvei seems suddenly very interested in a loose thread at the hem of his shirt.

Fuck.“How clear is the picture?”

“Not very but Elyssa’s face is pretty recognizable. It doesn’t help that the police are looking for her anyway in connection with Murray.”

Fuck again.

“You know the cops are the least of our worries, right?” Matvei reminds me. “The Yakuza are going to be on our asses now.”

“Fuck the Yakuza.”

“Phoenix, you and I… we’ve been brothers-in-arms for a long time now,” he says. He sounds almost tired now. “And even if you drop the ‘in-arms,’ we’d still be brothers in spirit. Which is why I’m comfortable saying this to you. This girl… best case scenario, she’s a distraction. Worse-case scenario? She’s a spy.”

Everything he’s saying is one-hundred-percent true. I’m trying to fight it but the evidence is overwhelming stacked against Elyssa and her troublesome friend.

“The child…”

“You don’t know if the child is yours,” Matvei interrupts. “You’ve taken her at her word. And even if the child is yours, you don’t know if that was part of the plan.”

I freeze as I weigh those implications. “Blyat’.You think she was sent to me?”

“She materialized out of thin air the moment before your meeting with Ozol, right?” Matvei asks skeptically. “You can’t deny that her showing up completely botched the meeting.”

Again, he’s right. Again, I hate it.

“She fucked you the same night and disappeared for a year. When she does pop up again, it’s in connection with the shady cop dealing with Astra Tyrannis.”

I close my eyes. “Enough.”

“And then, when you’ve finally got someone who knows something in a position to give you new intel, she stabs him? It’s—”

“Enough!”

Matvei sighs. “You don’t want to hear it because you know I’m right.”

I get to my feet and head for the door. “You may very well be right,” I concede. “But my instincts are telling me something different.”

“Don’t confuse your instincts with your cock, Phoenix,” Matvei snaps back at me. “Stronger men than you have lost bigger battles to their lust.”

I glare at Matvei from the door. “There is no battle bigger than the one I’m fighting. And there is no man stronger than me. You’d do well to remember that,brother.”

I slam the door on him as hard as I can, leaving him in my office with the sound reverberating through the corridor.

I don’t know where I’m going—I just need to walk. I need to breathe, calm down, to fuckingthink.

I’ve been warned about spies in my home, haven’t I? And God knows I’ve run into enough dead ends to suspect that someone on the inside might be betraying me.

But Elyssa showed up long after that started happening.

Is she innocent?

Or am I a blind fool?

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