Page 29 of Ripped Veil (Ripped Bratva)

Idiot.

That makes it easier for me to follow him at a safe distance.

I get another text notification, but I don’t even glance down to see who it is. I keep my eyes trained on the Lexus in front of me.

We drive for ten minutes before we arrive at a ramshackle building on the outskirts of the city.

I read the sign out loud. “Las Vegas Women’s Shelter… What the fuck?”

Definitely not what I’m expecting. But it doesn’t change anything. No matter where he goes, Jonathan Murray cannot be saved.

Tonight, one way or the other, he’s going to tell me everything he knows about Viktor Ozol and Astra Tyrannis.

And then he’s going to die.

I park several yards away and watch as he leaves his car and heads to the entrance of the shelter. My blood starts boiling as I watch his confident, purposeful gait. There’s only one reason a crooked cop connected to Astra Tyrannis would come to a women’s shelter…

Fresh meat for the market.

Elyssa

Las Vegas Women’s Shelter

I close the door softly, careful not to make any noise. Once I’m in the inventory room, I relax a little and pull out my trusty pad.

I’ve got columns upon columns of inventory that I need to take account of. I only finished half the list yesterday. The sleepless nights have been hitting me hard lately, but I refuse to be defeated by them. Work is work and it needs to get done. Not just so I earn my paycheck—but so all the women who come here desperate and hungry the way I did a year ago can be taken care of.

I move over to the far corner of the room where our new supplies have been stored. One item at a time, I go down the list, noting quantities and marking what needs to be replenished.

Spam. Check.

Boxed cereals. Check.

Breakfast bars. Check.

Some of the items are past their use-by date. I eye them suspiciously, but we can’t afford to be picky. The shelter’s been struggling lately. Too many women and not enough resources. But I’m glad that I’ve been able to do my part.

Learning the ropes those first few months was hard for me. Not just in the sense of this job in particular, but in the sense of the world as a whole.

For a while there, I’d felt like I was drowning. Heck, I may very well have drowned if it hadn’t been for Charity. She was the lifeline that kept me afloat while I found my footing in Las Vegas, battling constant sickness and my new reality.

“I know it’s hard,” she used to tell me. “Suck it up and keep going. It’ll make you stronger.”

There were days when I hated her for the tough love. But eventually, just like she’d promised, the smoke cleared. I emerged from the fog feeling more confident and more capable than I’d ever felt at home in the commune.

I had more on my plate than any woman should have to handle at one time. Especially a woman on her own. But I’d made decisions and I live every day now with the consequences, head held high.

There’s no going back, even if I wanted to.

I frown. My clipboard says that there should be ten pallets of canned vegetables. But when I count the large brown boxes in front of me, I only get eight.

“Damn,” I breathe, one of the few curse words I’m comfortable using.

Charity likes to tease that she’ll make a potty mouth of me yet. But that’s one thing I don’t mind keeping from my old life.

I move to the old cord phone lodged into the back of the room next to the water cooler and dial in our supplier’s number. It takes at least ten rings before Miles answers.

“Yeah?” he grunts into the phone.

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