Page 16 of The Bratva’s Monster

I count them now that they’re all surrounding me. Counting Josef, it’s seven. None of them are openly armed, but I think I’d know it by now. Still, there are glasses and bottles everywhere. If they’re used to dust ups, they’ll use them. This is about to be a bloody fight.

“You call us bitches?” Josef says. He’s laughing, but I can see that jab hurt him. “Rostov clown calls us bitches when they can’t even keep their own house in order. Wasn’t one of yours Slavik’s bitch a couple months back?” He stares at me, waiting for a reaction. I don’t give him one. “Yeah. Word around town he was giving it to us real good. So good, we’re still getting some choice head from his corpse.”

He laughs, and I laugh too, lulling him into a false sense of security. Pretty soon, they’re all laughing.

Then I punch him square in the nose with enough force to feel the cartilage crack under my knuckles. His head rocks back as an arch of blood sails over his head. Before they can react, I grab the closest one to me by the back of his neck and slam his head into the bar.

“Fucking broke my nose!” he screams as the others move to box me in. Fists come at me, and I roll with them. They hit my chin and my shoulder, barely connecting. I block a punch and push one off me, grab another by the face and push him back. He falls ass over tea kettle, flipping over a table before hitting the floor.

I elbow one in the face, grab one by the neck and swing him across the room. Everything’s a blur and as the fight gets more intense, a switch goes off in my brain. I’m no longer fully conscious of pain as my rage starts pumping through my blood.

I hear glass break and I look up. Josef, with blood smeared across the bottom half of his face, snarls at me, a broken bottle in his hand. I move as he lunges at me, pushing a table between us. He stumbles but keeps coming, pushing the table on its side to get to me.

“I’m gonna fucking kill you, you piece of⁠—”

I reach for my gun and point it at his head… and everything stops. My senses shift back just as I’m about to pull the trigger.

He stares at the gun, then at me, still holding the broken bottle. The others, or at least the two who are still standing, stop as well, watching me with careful eyes for any opening to disarm me.

“You really Stefan Kiselev’s brother?” I ask Josef.

“You bet your ass I am.”

I nod. “We got something in common, then.”

His brothers behind him get it before him. I see recognition morph to fear on their faces almost immediately. As for Josef, it takes him a few seconds. He scowls and shakes his head. “You’re shitting me.”

“Look around, Comrade. You tell me.”

He stares at me for a long moment, then tears his eyes away to look at the four men on the floor—one on his hands and knees near the door, his face a bloody mess, another lying in the fetal position near the edge of the bar. I hear one groaning from behind the bar, and the one I threw over the table must have hit his head because he’s been lying still this whole time.

“And this is me holding back,” I say with a sinister smile. “We can keep going round and round if you want. I’ve got all fucking day, but I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that neither of our brothers would be happy about this shit.”

His shit-eating grin slides off his face as he realizes I’m right. I’m willing to bet Josef wasn’t even supposed to be on this side of town, anyway.

“Shit,” I hear one of them say. “We are going to be so fucked.”

“Shut up,” Josef hisses at them with a side eye. He turns his attention back to me as a sheen of sweat breaks out on his forehead.

“This ain’t over,” he says to me. “Next time I see you, you’re fucking dead.”

“Can’t wait.”

He drops the broken bottle and I put away my gun, then I walk out of the bar. It’s not until I’m in my car and driving away that I notice the blood running down my face. I look in the rearview and see the old wound above my eye that I got from that fight in the cemetery has reopened. One of them must have gotten in a good punch or two.

I should get myself cleaned up before I talk to Alex about what happened. Hope Marius isn’t too busy.

8

LIZ

“I’m good. Really. I’ll have water if you’ve got it.”

Yeva shakes her head. “Oh, come on,” she says. “I bought this whole bottle of wine that I’ve got to blow through tonight. You two are really going to make me drink it alone?”

She and I are in the bedroom of her apartment, her clothes everywhere, open suitcases on her bed and on the floor. Her sister-in-law, Nona, is standing in her closet, looking through the rack of dresses. She’s got long, crimson hair that’s up in a messy bun and she’s wearing a T-shirt that’s a little too tight over her round, pregnant belly and sweatpants that hang a little too low on her hips.

Nona’s our age, but she has a deeply youthful look about her. Freckles across her nose, big green eyes, heart-shaped face. I imagine she hasn’t changed much in appearance since she was in high school.