Chapter 3 #5
Maybe I could prepare a little welcome for my little viper.
And finally have a proper conversation with that Kenji who acted as her driver, and remove him from her life once and for all.
They weren’t together. I knew that. When I had questioned him after he tried to help the Floros sisters escape, I had understood it clearly.
He didn’t want Sienna the way I did. He didn’t see her the way I saw her.
But he was protective of her. He cared. And she cared about him.
Maybe that bond was what kept her away from me.
If that was the case, I would break it. Destroy it, him too, if necessary.
“One of our men had an interesting encounter last night,” Nikolai said suddenly, pulling me out of my thoughts. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, fingers interlaced, a posture that never meant anything good. I wiped my hands and pushed the container aside, “I’m listening.”
“In the nineteenth district, Mission area. One of our guys ran into a girl,” he began darkly.
“He swore she couldn’t have been more than fifteen, maybe sixteen” a bad feeling settled in my gut.
“What the hell was she doing there? In the middle of the night?” I asked, frowning.
“That’s what he asked her. She hesitated for a long time before answering.
Said she was lost, but she was dressed in a way that was… far from appropriate,” he said grimly.
My jaw tightened. Mission District was a hellhole, drugs, weapons, prostitution.
No place for a child. The Bratva did have a prostitution network, but the rules were clear: no minors, ever, and always consent.
That branch was under Vassili’s control, and even if he was a bastard, the law was the law. Breaking it meant only one thing.
Death.
No one was above that sentence. Not even an Ivanov.
“You think Vassili believes he’s above our laws?
” I asked, rage rising so fast it nearly blinded me.
He would hire minors? Were they even consenting?
Did they even know what consent was? “I don’t know,” my brother sighed, rubbing his face.
“But if it’s true, we’re in deep shit. Since Yelsky died, the cards have been reshuffled.
His son took over the family, and he’s a strong supporter of Vassili.
And given the power he holds through Minnesota, one of our rare access points into Canada, the other families are forced to bend to his whims,” he growled, reminding me of our precarious position.
“If we go up against Vassili now, we go up against Yelsky Junior too, and he’ll start shaking the order of things.
” I laced my fingers behind my head as my mind began to race. Yes. It was a mess.
“We’re not seriously going to let him prostitute kids, Niko, fuck!” I hissed, leaning over my desk to spit the words in a low voice, disgust curdling my stomach just from saying them. “We have to do something.”
“First, finalize that damn merger, Sasha,” Nikolai snapped.
“We need to strengthen our position at the table”.
He straightened “as for Vassili, we verify the truth first, moy brat, and then we act accordingly”.
. He turned toward me, hesitated, then spoke again, his voice quieter, “I would’ve handled this myself, but Selina is going through the hardest part of her pregnancy.
I want… you know…” I cut him off by lifting a hand.
“Don’t worry, moy brat. I’ll take care of it.
Go be with your wife and your daughter.” I gave him a faint smile, first Grigori, and now Nikolai, watching them go full lovesick duck was almost entertaining.
Not that it would ever happen to me. It wasn’t my style.
“Thank you, Sasha. It means a lot” he said as he stood.
I simply rolled my eyes as he left, wearing the same stupid grin he’d arrived with. He lifted his phone as he opened the door, “another kick, Solnyshko?” was the last thing I heard before the door closed behind him.
“On pólniy podkablu?chnik” (he’s completely whipped) I muttered, lowering my eyes to the phone in my hands, when had I even picked it up?
Still no notification. My fingers tightened around the device as anger, and the thoughts I’d been forcing down these past weeks, surged back.
I replayed our moments together, trying to find what had caused that brutal shift in her behavior toward me.
A mistake. That was what she had dared to call what we’d lived.
She had dared to push me away. People didn’t push me away.
They didn’t turn their backs on me. Especially not her.
Especially not Sienna. I wouldn’t let her do it.
I wouldn’t let her hide any longer, hide her past and rob me of her future.
Our future. Because whether she wanted to accept it or not, her future and mine were bound.
Indisputably. And I would let nothing tear them apart, not even her.
So I opened our conversation again, where my messages sat unanswered, and typed another one before returning to the contracts.
Game over, moya malen’kaya gadyuka. No matter where or how you’re hiding, I will find you.