Page 42 of The Bratva’s Monster

Another few seconds of silence, then the locks on the door disengage. When it opens, he’s standing and completely blocking the entrance. His hair is down, auburn curls falling down to his shoulders. He’s shirtless. He’s wearing a pair of sweat pants and nothing else. In the light of day, his muscular chest tells a story. Every tattoo and faded scar silently tells a story about a man who lived and fought hard for the Rostov gang. And on his right shoulder is a short line of stitches, the newest scar left from the bullet that grazed him last night. Black stitches mark angry red skin in a short, jagged line over his skin.

“What are you doing here?” he asks me. “Last night wasn’t enough of a message for you to stay the fuck away from me?”

“Can I come in?”

He looks me over for a second, then takes a step back to let me in.

His front door opens directly into his living room. It’s nice, simple, a leather couch and chair and a black lacquer table in front of a smooth concrete fireplace with a mantel that has a bunch of old photos and other little items that look meaningful to him. In the farthest corner is a staircase leading to the second floor.

“You want to talk,” he says as we walk in together. “Talk.” He walks over to the couch and sits on the arm.

The fear is coming back, grabbing me right in my stomach, trying to force me to stay silent. I take a deep breath to chase the feeling away.

“I’m not afraid of you,” I say to him. He arches an eyebrow.

“You drove all the way here to tell me that?”

“Among other things, yes. Last night, what happened was… It was frightening. I wasn’t ready to see you become the very thing that everyone has been saying you are.”

He crosses his arms, but he doesn’t have anything to say to that. So I go on.

“My husband might have done terrible and terrifying things, too, but he never let me see them. He never ever let me see that side of him.”

He frowns a little, and I’m expecting a wisecrack. Instead, he says, “Gedeon loved you. He wouldn’t have wanted you to see him at his worst.”

I scoff. “I don’t think that’s true. I mean, I’m sure he loved me, but there are worse ways to show someone your dark side.”

“Worse ways than torturing a man to death? Seriously?”

I sigh, rolling my eyes. “He left me on our honeymoon night.” His frown deepens, but I don’t give him a chance to respond. “You remember we were married here and we flew to Vegas for our honeymoon? Well, we spent all of two hours together in that hotel room before he left and didn’t come back until a day later. He was drunk and smelling of alcohol… and broke. All the money we’d brought for the vacation, he’d spent in the casinos, so we had to come straight home.”

I laugh a little, the madness of that time coming back to me. I wander to the chair across from him and sit down. “And you would think that I’d get the hint and divorce him after that. I didn’t, though. We fought about it and he promised never to do it again and for some reason, I believed him. I believed him right up until he lost my wedding ring in a card game.”

I rub my ring finger with my thumb absently. “He said he would get me a new one, but he never did. That was bad. But then, the worst, the absolute worst was the day I almost had to, had to…” My voice is starting to crack. I force myself to push through it. “The day I almost had to give a sexual favor to a man he’d lost some money to. Fortunately, the man backed out when he heard us arguing about it. Guess he had a conscience or something. I’d told Gedeon it would be the end of our marriage if he made me go through with it.”

I pause and look away. I don’t really want to see the pity in his eyes. “After that, I told him that it needed to stop. I didn’t care how it stopped, but it had to right away. Because if it didn’t, I was going to leave him.” My eyes are starting to burn. I swallow hard in an effort to push down the lump forming in my throat.

“He didn’t stop, did he?”

I shake my head. “One day, a few months ago, I was at the grocery store and my card declined, which was strange. The money was from our shared account and Gedeon and I always talked to one another before we made any purchases on it. I thought that it had to be an error, so I called the bank to find out that… that it was all gone. The account was closed and every penny was gone. When I asked how that was possible, they told me that Gedeon had been the one to close the account.”

The tears are coming. I can’t stop them. They run down my face. Fuck it.

“I confronted him, and he told me that he was going to reopen the account just as soon as he won the money back. Eventually, he did pay it back, but by then, I’d had enough. I ended up asking him for a divorce.”

I’m looking down at my hands as the tears fall down into them. I sniffle and wipe my face. I don’t have time to feel sorry for myself right now.

“You think that Gedeon was a traitor,” I say, looking him in the eye. “Well, he was a lot of things, but the one thing he was loyal to was the Bratva. I don’t know how to convince you of that other than to say that of all the times he was dishonest with me about his gambling, he never let it get in the way of the brotherhood. Not once.” I sniffle and wipe my nose with the back of my hand. I’m a mess, but I don’t care. I have to get this out.

“Being a Rostov was the one thing he was the most proud of. More than money, more than things. More than me. And believe me, I know better than anyone. He’d broken my heart so many times before he died that I think he started doing it for sport in the end.”

The sobs are starting to rise up in my throat. “And, you know, for the record, I didn’t sleep with you out of some way to betray Gedeon. I did it… I did it because I wanted to feel something other than failure. I failed him. I failed our marriage, I⁠—”

“Stop,” he says.

“But Rikki⁠—”

“Stop talking.” He doesn’t raise his voice, but he’s firm, his eyes boring into me. He stands up and walks over to me, taking my hands and pulling me to my feet. Then, he takes my face in his hands and says softly. “Stop talking.”