Page 77 of Ripped Lace (Ripped Bratva)

There are so many factors that remain unclear. She’s looking up at me with hope in her eyes, though. The kind of hope that makes me feel certain for the first time in as long as I can remember that everything will be okay in the end. I want to tell her that. She needs to hear it.

“Elyssa—”

But the rest of my words are swallowed up in an explosion so loud that it makes my ears ring for several seconds.

A blast of hot air and stinging bits of debris ripples past us.

When my ears stop ringing, I’m aware of the hysterical cry of the baby from inside the house. Elyssa is two steps ahead of me, already rushing towards Leona and Theo.

More shapes are moving, too. My men frantically scrambling to respond to whatever the fuck just happened. Panic etched across their faces.

I catch up to Elyssa, Leona, and Theo.

“Boss, what do we do?” Leona asks. She looks calm. I know that the concern in her eyes is for Theo alone. She’s not a woman who shies away from battle. It’s one of the reasons I hand-picked her to take care of Theo—she does not fuck around.

Elyssa plucks Theo out of Leona’s arms and cradles him close. “Come on,” I tell both of them, surveying the grounds for the best avenues of escape. I can see smoke whirling up over the rooftop from the blast site on the other side of the house.

“Leona, find a safe place to take cover and stay with Elyssa and Theo,” I order. “And if anyone you don’t recognize comes within ten feet of you… fucking shoot them.”

“Got it,” she says. “Don’t worry. They’ll be safe with me.”

I give her a nod and turn my back on them before running straight into the blistering smoke engulfing the mansion.

I almost run into Konstantin as I burst in through one of the back entrances. The wall has come down on one side and I spy at least two bodies beneath the rubble.

“What the fuck?” I growl.

“Boss!” Konstantin barks. “We’ve been breached.”

“Yeah, no shit. Where are the others?”

“We’ve got two contingents on either side of the house trying to hold them back. They’ve come with a small army, though.”

“Who?” I ask. “Who has come?”

“The Yakuza,” Konstantin explains grimly. “Eiko’s here. He’s the one who led his men in after the explosion.”

Eiko fucking Sakamoto.I should have killed the motherfucker when he’d been within reach.

I curse myself as Konstantin and I maneuver through the rubble. “You got an extra weapon on you?” I ask.

He unholsters a gun from the belt around his waist and throws it to me. I turn off the safety and hold it up as we round the corner.

I pass another body. One of the maids. “Jesus,” I growl as I sink to one knee and check her pulse with my gun still at the ready.

“Well?”

“Dead,” I sigh. “Those motherfuckers.”

“Where’s your wife? And the boy?” Konstantin asks.

A shiver of déjà vu surges through my body. I suppress it and get back to my feet. “With Leona out back. I told them to take cover until we could contain the situation.”

“He probably wants them,” Konstantin muses.

But as we turn the corner, my eyes land on the open door to the basement cellar—and I know immediately what he’d really here for me.

“Not Elyssa,” I reply, shaking my head. “He came for fucking Josiah.”

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