Page 155 of Ripped Lace (Ripped Bratva)

“My guards?” Eiko asks sourly.

“Dead,” I reply with a smug smirk as I toss the pistol at his feet. “I believe that belongs to one of them.”

“All five of them?

“Even if you’d sent ten, the outcome would have been no different.”

Eiko narrows his eyes. “You will pay for that.”

I roll my eyes. “I’m still waiting to pay for your brother’s death. Seems like my bill is getting pretty large.”

Ozol turns his shrewd, watchful eyes on me. “Phoenix Kovalyov, you’ve proved to be much more trouble than I expected.”

“You’re not the first man who’s made the mistake of underestimating me.”

“Actually, Phoenix, you’ll find that you’re the one who’s underestimated me,” he retorts. “I was surprised to learn that your undoing is a woman. A rather foolish one, at that.”

I stiffen. “Where is she?”

“Somewhere in this building.”

“I’ve come to exchange my life for hers,” I say.

Ozol raises his eyebrows. “Is that so?”

“You have no real use for her—”

“On the contrary, her body will be extremely useful to me. For as long as she lasts, of course.”

I glare at him. “If you touch her, I will murder you. And I’ll make sure to draw it out, too.”

“You realize you have twenty different guns pointed at you right now?” he asks with mild amusement. “You make one wrong move and you’ll be dead before you draw your next breath.”

“Are you underestimating me again?” I ask. “And I thought you were a smart man.”

He sneers at me, trying to keep the upper hand. “Careful, boy; I hold more cards than you now.”

That statement strikes me as odd, but I know how men like Viktor Ozol work. Of course he feels he has a hand to play.

“I want to speak to her.”

“I don’t think you’re in any position to be making demands.”

“And yet, here I am, demanding away.”

Ozol smiles. “You know, in another life, you would have been the perfect ally.”

I spit on the ground in response.

He sighs. “Pity.”

His freakishly light eyes scan my face as though trying to wrench my secrets lose. “Let me tell you something, Phoenix: I always win,” he remarks. “One way or another, I always come out on top. Now, take him down to one of the basement cells. I want him hurt, but not dead.”

“What?!” Eiko exclaims.

Ozol turns towards the Yakuza don, looking visibly annoyed.

“Viktor,” Eiko says, his tone respectful but firm, “you promised me that I would be given the right to murder thisyowamushi. There is a code of honor that must be obeyed. He killed my brother.”

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