Page 198 of Ripped Veil (Ripped Bratva)

I bought the land years ago. Not for myself—but for Aurora.

“Let’s retire here, Phoenix,” she’d told me once. “We can build a big house and live our golden years gazing out at a meadow of green. We can spend forever here.”

So when I’d been confronted with her mutilated body, this was the only place I could think of to lay her to rest.

She’s spending forever here, indeed. Just not the way we planned.

Once we park, Matvei and I head in the direction of Aurora’s grave. It’s a grove of trees that stand guard around two white marble headstones.

One for my wife.

One for my son.

But there’s only a single body buried in the plots. Yuri’s name might be etched into the marble but his body rests somewhere else entirely. No matter how far and wide I’ve searched, I’ve never been able to find a trace of him.

“You okay?” Matvei asks quietly as we approach.

“Fine.”

“When’s the last time you came here?”

“Been a while,” I admit. “Too long.”

“You know, I can bury Vitya on my own. You don’t need to—”

I shoot him a vicious glare. “I can do this, Matvei.”

“I know you can,” he says. “I’m just saying that you don’t have to.”

“I’m good.”

Matvei drops it.

When we reach the two headstones nestled between the cluster of trees, my men are already there. Vitya’s body has been prepared and his grave is almost halfway done.

“Boss,” Konstantin says, looking up over his shovel, “I spoke to our guy in the funeral parlor. The headstone’s gonna take a few weeks.”

“That’s fine,” I reply. “We’ll add it later.”

“You need to let me know what you want it to say.”

For a moment, I’m stumped. And then I realize how obvious the answer is.

“Vitya Azarov—He Never Stopped Searching.”

“You got it, boss. Would you mind writing that one down for me?”

“Jesus, Konstantin,” Matvei cuts in with an eyeroll. “Just keep digging. I’ll fucking write it down for you later, dumbass.”

Konstantin throws Matvei a dirty look but he keeps digging.

For a second, I’m pulled into the man I was several years ago. That man would have laughed at the exchange. That man would have been amused by it.

I’d stopped finding the humor in such petty things a long time ago.

I feel something foreign twist inside me: a longing for lighter days. Things hadn’t always felt quite so heavy, quite so doomed. But I buried all the light I’d ever been given right here, five years ago.

I’m never going to get it back.

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