Page 68 of The Bratva’s Monster

He looks over the papers, then picks up one of the papers. “This is thin, Rikki. He could have done business with him over the phone. He could have been meeting in person with him⁠—”

“The Irkutsks are half our numbers,” I say. “If they had that kind of direct line to us, we wouldn’t have gotten as far as we have. Slavik could have destroyed us with what Gedeon knew. Easily.”

He thumbs through the pages, looking at each thing for a few seconds before going to the next. “He knew Stefan for all these years?”

“Since Russia,” I say. “They were brothers, but… so were we.”

“What about the video?” he says as he set down the paper in his hands. “What were they meeting about?”

I thumb through the papers, coming to the last communication between the two of them. I hand it to Alex. “Liz says that he lost about ten grand sometime before he died. Then he got it back shortly before his death, around the time that the video was made. It’s pretty clear that he just asked his friend for the money.”

Alex reads the paper in his hand, the three sentences telling Gedeon not to worry about paying him back. He sets it down, then he looks back down at the rest and shakes his head. “You have got to be kidding me.”

“If Gedeon wasn’t a rat, then Liz couldn’t have been. He didn’t bring this life home with him, Alex. She doesn’t know anything about our plans and she doesn’t have any connection to anyone on that side.”

He sighs and says, “If it’s not her, then who is it?”

Before I can say anything, my phone buzzes in my pocket. I pull it out to see that it’s Liz, so I answer.

“Rikki?” Her voice is shaking and she’s breathing hard. “I need you to come back.”

I hear a man groaning in the background. “What’s going on?”

“I shot him. I-I shot him in the shoulder and the leg and, and, I don’t know what to do. I need you to come back. Please.”

“I’m on my way.” I hang up and to Alex I say, “all this you might be able to explain away, but if we play our cards right, we might get some real confirmation within the hour.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Somebody who owes us an explanation,” I say, “is waiting to be picked up.”

27

LIZ

The adrenaline high I’m on is like nothing else I’ve experienced. It burns in my chest like a blue fire, hot and intense like jet fuel. I feel invincible.

No, that’s not right. I feel powerful.

By the time Rikki showed up, my attacker’s moans of pain had subsided to a low, pathetic sound. Like a wounded deer in the woods. Otherwise, he wasn’t speaking much and when he did, it was some proclamation of disbelief about how I’d shot him.

I guess he didn’t think I had it in me. Hell, I didn’t think I had it in me.

To my surprise, Rikki showed up with his brother. For a split second, I thought that this was the end. That he’d failed and now we’re all dead. But the moment Alex saw me standing there with the gun still pointed at this Irkutsk scum, I could see a look of amazement in his eyes.

I guess no one thought I had it in me.

Well, except maybe Rikki. He didn’t congratulate me or give me any accolades, but he looked over the scene as though he expected exactly this, then told me to grab my shit and wait in the car. And I did. I waited in the backseat while the two of them dragged Josef out and put him in the trunk. And then we were off.

Rikki didn’t speak to me for the whole ride. In fact, no one spoke. I don’t know what happened before I called. I don’t know if I’m still in danger. All I do know is that the mood has shifted and these two men mean to get on with the business in front of them.

Now, I’m leaning against the wall of the hallway, the basement just a few steps before me. They dragged him down there a few minutes ago. I’ve been staring down at the smears of blood on the wood floor from where they dragged him.

The last time I was in this space was when Rikki got hold of one of the intruders in my house. Watching him torture that man was my very first awakening, I think. Or rather, real understanding of what this world is really about.

I don’t know all the rules yet, but I know one. If they hurt you, you have every right to make them bleed.

And this man meant to hurt me. To kill me, actually. And he thought he would be able to do it using just a knife.