Page 87 of Ripped Veil (Ripped Bratva)

“It gets left for me at random places. One day, it was in my laundry basket. Another time it came with a delivery of food. It’s how they let me know they’re watching me, keeping tabs. It’s how they let me know they can get into my house any fucking time they want.”

Jesus.These are not amateurs I’m dealing with.

“And what kinds of instructions are you given?” I ask. “What kind of tasks do you carry out?”

“Random bullshit, man. Mostly, it’s picking up girls from one location and taking them to another.”

“Abducting them, you mean,” I snarl.

He shrugs his shoulders. “Yeah, fine, call it what you want. I fucking kidnap who I’m told to. If I say no, I die.”

“You deserve to.”

Murray stares at me blankly. I can see the effect of the drugs in his eyes.

“What about Victor Ozol?”

“What about him?”

“What do you know about him?”

“He’s a powerful man. Can’t say I’ve ever met him, though.”

“Where is he?”

“Fuck if I know.”

I want to shoot this moron in the face right now. It’s a dead end, all of it. Murray’s a fucking dead end.

Rather than do something impulsive, I walk out of the cell. Matvei follows behind. “Phoenix…”

“Fuck!” I growl. I ball up a fist and punch a panel on the wall. It crunches beneath my knuckles. The sting of pain is exactly what I needed. It sharpens me. Focuses me.

“He’s nothing more than a lackey,” Matvei finishes.

I nod. “He ties up loose ends for the organization. If anyone catches him, he gets pinned for all this shit and the organization stays clean. He’s useless.”

“So now what?” Matvei asks, glancing back over his shoulder where Murray is drooling and moaning nonsense syllables under his breath.

I follow his gaze. The bastard is corrupt. He’s pathetic.

And as of now, he’s useless to me.

“We kill him,” I say grimly. “And we make it fucking hurt.”

19

Elyssa

Early In The Morning

Theo blinks his eyes open and yawns in my face. I can’t resist leaning in to plant a kiss on his cheek.

After our long early hours chat, Charity fell back to sleep. I’d managed to sleep, too. But not as deeply or as long. And of course, it wasn’t restful. It never is. I’d dreamed again. Big, sprawling dreams of desert suffused with patchouli and houses ringed with fire.

Everywhere I turned, I was trapped.

And everywhere I ran, I was followed.

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