Page 184 of Ripped Veil (Ripped Bratva)

“Contain him?” I repeat. “The man’s pushing seventy. There’s at least ten of you here.”

“The problem is not subduing him,” Ilya explains, following me as I stride into the warehouse. “The problem is getting our hands on him.”

I look around urgently but I can’t see Vitya. In fact, I can’t see anyone.

“Where the fuck is everyone?”

“Out back,” Ilya tells me. “They’re trying to make sure he doesn’t jump.”

Jump?Fucking hell.

I start running at a dead sprint. I only stop when I come out the other side of the long warehouse building and see what’s happening.

Matvei is standing in the center of the small group of my men. They’re all looking up at the roof of the warehouse.

I turn around and catch sight of my father-in-law. He’s somehow managed to scale the wall and get right up to the apex of the warehouse roof. It’s at least a forty-foot drop from there onto nothing but pure concrete.

“How the fuck did he get up there?” I roar.

Matvei turns to face me. “There was a ladder on the side, the one we use to maintain the gutters. He got up there and pushed the ladder out. Broke the fucking thing, too.”

“We have other ladders. Why the hell is everyone standing down here?”

“Every time anyone even attempts to get up there, he threatens to jump.”

“Maybe we should let him,” Ilya says darkly.

I twist around and fix him with my most scathing glare. “That man up there is my wife’s father,” I tell him. “I’m not about to let him die. Even if he wants to.”

Ilya crumbles underneath my stare. “Right. Sorry, boss.”

I look up. At the same time, Vitya spots me. Even from this distance, I see his eyes go wide and his nostrils flare.

So his little stint at the psychiatric ward hasn’t exactly helped improve his impression of me. Either that or something happened since my enemies freed him that has soured his thoughts even further.

“Vitya!” I call, holding up my arms. “Listen, you need to—”

“No!” he wails. His voice is wracked with grief and madness. “Not you! You’re the murderer. The monster who took my daughter.”

“For fuck’s sake, Vitya,” I say, “you used to refer to me as your son. Do you remember that?”

“I remember everything,” he seethes. “And I’m sick of remembering. I want to forget now.”

“Vitya, please. I can get you help.”

“There’s no one that can help me. Least of all you. You’re the reason she’s dead.”

“I know,” I say.

I don’t have to take the blame on—I already have it in spades. I’ve been carrying it with me since the moment she died. Since the moment she and my boy were taken from me.

“She begged you not to go through with the operation at Primm. She knew it was dangerous. You did it anyway…”

I stop short. As far as I know, Vitya hadn’t been privy to the operation at Primm.

But what he’s saying was true. She had begged me not to do it. Not to leave the house that night. Not to fight the war against Astra Tyrannis that my family has been fighting for a long, long time.

“They took their revenge,” Vitya sobs. He’s dangerously close to the edge of the roof, teetering with his eyes closed in the whipping breeze. “They took their revenge on you because of what you did. That’s why my baby had to die. They were trying to teach you a lesson.”

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