Page 122 of Ripped Lace (Ripped Bratva)

“They’re going to find his body,” Elyssa hisses.

I pull her down the corridor behind us in search of somewhere better to hide. A pair of doors waits at the end, but when I try the handles, both are locked.

“What are we going to do?”

I hold my finger up to my lips. Then I remove my jacket and wrap it around my hand. Using it as a buffer, I shove my fist through the big glass window in the door. It shatters. I knock out the rest of the shards, then reach through and open the door from the inside.

We both slip in and shut it behind us. I stand to the side and peer out through the broken glass, waiting to see if we’ll be discovered. When the noise of the soldiers moves past us and fades away, I relax a little.

“Alright, now we can—”

Except she’s not by my side like I’d expected. She’s in the far corner of the dark room.

“Elyssa?” I call after her softly.

“Phoenix!” she whisper-shouts back. “I think someone’s in here.”

I jump forward, ready to fight whoever it is, when I realize that Elyssa’s not talking about a possible enemy hiding in the corner.

She’s talking about the young woman cowering in the cell set up in the far corner of the room.

Elyssa slides to her knees in front of the wrought iron bars. “Hey,” she croons. “What’s your name?”

The young woman’s eyes are wide with fear as she takes in the two of us. She doesn’t speak, but her eyes linger. She’s young—no more than sixteen—with dark rings under her eyes and bedraggled auburn hair.

“We can help you,” Elyssa adds. “But you have to trust me.”

“Trust?” the woman laughs scornfully. “Trust is what led me here in the first place.”

“My name is Elyssa. And this is P—”

“Elyssa!” I interrupt sharply. I grab her arm and yank her back up onto her feet. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“Trying to figure out what’s happened to her,” she retorts. “What does it look like?”

“She’s not our problem at the moment. We need to be searching for Theo.”

“And how do you propose we do that without some help? She’s obviously been here a while. She might be able to help us.”

“That wasn’t the plan.”

“It wasn’tyourplan. There are more ways to do things than just the Phoenix way.”

If the situation weren’t so serious, I might have laughed.

While we’ve been arguing, the woman has gotten to her feet. She’s standing in front of the bars now, looking between the two of us.

“You’re not from here,” she remarks in an awed voice.

“No,” Elyssa says, “we’re not. We’re here to look for someone. My son, actually.”

The woman’s eyes go wide. She looks normal enough, as far as those things go. She might even be pretty. But it’s hard to tell with all the mottled bruises covering her face.

“You’re here to rescue your son?” she asks. “God help you…”

“What’s your name?” Elyssa tries again.

“Violet,” the woman murmurs.

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