Page 221 of Ripped Veil (Ripped Bratva)

I hurl her down and bring my foot down hard on her knee. She screams but the blood in her throat is starting to choke her. The screams turn to strangled gurgles.

“Phoenix!” Elyssa cries. “What are you doing?!”

I ignore her. I’ve held my rage in for long enough. For five long years, I’ve wondered what I’d do if I caught the people who killed my family.

Now, I know.

“You finally have your limp,” I growl at Anna.

I break her other leg. Her body jerks, but there’s no scream this time.

She’s going to die soon. She has a minute, maybe two, no more than that.

But it’s all happening too fast. I want so desperately to save her—just so I can draw out her death for the next several months. She deserves no less.

I kneel in front of her, grabbing her face and forcing her eyes to mine. I need her to look at me when she goes.

“This is for Aurora,” I say as I draw the knife from my boot sheath and hold it up under her jaw. “This is for Yuri.”

Anna tries to spit in my face but she doesn’t have the strength. It turns into a dribble of blood and saliva on her chin. “F-fuck… y—”

I laugh mirthlessly. “Tell the devil I said hello.”

Then I cut her throat like the animal she is.

Elyssa cries out, turns to the side, and dry heaves. But there’s nothing in her stomach to come up. I’m distantly aware of her crawling away from Anna’s twitching corpse.

I’m dripping in the traitor’s blood. I have everything I wanted. Revenge, hot and bloody and complete. I finally got her.

And yet…

It feels like nothing.

I don’t feel relief. Or happiness. Or satisfaction.

I just feel empty.

Anna may have been a monster. But she worked for worse ones. And they were the ones pulling her strings. Handing down their orders while they sat in their castles, removed from the bloodshed and devastation they cause.

My masters,she called them.The powers that be. The men in the shadows.

All synonyms for one thing: monsters too cowardly to do the dirty work themselves.

A cry in the hallway draws my attention. I look through the open door to see a car seat set on the ground. In it, I can see the top of Theo’s downy dark hair.

So like Yuri’s.

He’s buried somewhere on this property, she said. But until I find his remains, I refuse to believe that Anna was telling the truth. She spewed lie after lie. Who knows what was true, what was false? What was intended to explain and what was intended to hurt?

Elyssa is still on her hands and knees, retching out nothing more than air. Her eyes are wild with panic and her body is trembling like a leaf.

Now, I have her to deal with. She may or may not be another spy. But I was right about one thing: she’s a weakness.

“Get a hold of yourself,” I say coldly.

It’s a curious feeling, the seeping cold that’s frosting over my limbs and making me feel nothing but anger. But it also makes me feel in control.

She glances back at me. I can see the helplessness in her eyes. She’s trying not to look at Anna’s body but her eyes keep flitting to it anyway. Then, with a show of willpower, she wrenches her gaze away and looks instead at Theo.

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