Page 61 of Ripped Veil (Ripped Bratva)

“I won’t be old for another fifty years at least,” Matvei scoffs. “And I’ll still be younger than you.”

Smiling, I take another gulp of whiskey. I think I hear a baby cry, but I shake the sound out of my head.

I’m just hearing things again. The same way I’d heard a baby cry for months after my son’s funeral.

That whole affair was nothing more than an empty ceremony. There was no body in the tiny miniature coffin we lowered into the ground. I had nothing tangible to grieve. Nothing to say goodbye to.

Just the empty space where my son and wife should’ve been.

I hear another cry. This time, it’s louder. It doesn’t feel like a figment of my imagination. It feels so utterly fucking real that I wonder if my own head is finally turning against me. Making a mockery of my pain.

I pull back the glass and finish the rest of the whiskey in two glugs.

Matvei eyes my empty glass, but he doesn’t offer to get me a refill. His own is still half-full.

My eyes flicker back to the wall, dripping with pinned pages flickering in the breeze from the fan circling overhead. At the center of it are two side to side images.

One is of Victor Ozol. The second is of Hitoshi Sakamoto. Both big players, as far as I can tell. Both powerful. Both utterly elusive.

“Get some sleep, Phoenix,” Matvei says. “It’s fucking late.”

“I don’t need to sleep. I need to sort out the new leads.”

He sighs but doesn’t argue. “I’ll see you tomorrow morning, then.”

“Close the door on your way out.”

A hush falls over the room the moment Matvei leaves. My own thoughts are always the most dangerous, I’ve found. But they’re a poison I can’t resist.

I get to my feet and head over to the wall. As far as I’ve been able to discern, Ozol and Sakamoto have never actually met face-to-face. But that doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened. In the underworld I roam in, there are plenty of dark corners where two powerful men can meet in secret.

It’s all right here—somewhere. I just need to connect the fucking dots. To find a way to bring Astra Tyrannis to its knees.

And these men are the key to that.

Five years ago, when I started this quest for vengeance, I thought I’d be done before the year was out. That my wife and son wouldn’t have to wait long for me to get payback against the people who snatched them from me.

But Astra Tyrannis is a hydra. Every time I cut off a head, two more appear, slithering and foul. It’s endlessly frustrating. So much blood spilled and so little gained.

I made a promise to myself, though.

To my dead wife.

To my dead son.

Someone is going to pay for their deaths. I will not die until justice has been served.

* * *

Once I’ve studied the wall into the wee hours of the morning, I find myself back at my desk.

No point in going to bed. I do my best sleeping in this office, anyway. Staring at the enigma protecting my family’s murderers.

When I do finally drift off, I see their faces, like always. Aurora and Yuri’s. Bright. Loving. Laughing. The way they were before they were taken from me.

But at some point midway through the dream, those faces morph.

And then all I can see is Elyssa and Theo.

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