Page 5 of Bratva's Secret Girl

They stop before me, and the one at the front with black hair, looks me up and down with a sneer.

“I don’t want coffee,” he says in a cut-glass posh accent. “Where’s your sister?”

“What?” I squawk.

“Where,” he leans onto the wooden counter, “is your thieving little sister?”

The blood drains out of my face.

“Payton? She’s at uni,” I babble. Probably she’s at home now.

He’s shaking his head even before I’ve made the statement. Out of the corner of my eye I notice that the other four men are wandering around. They close the blinds and flick the door sign to “closed”, and flip the lock.

“Hey, you can’t do that,” I protest.

“Yes, I can.” He bares his teeth in an approximation of a smile. “Don’t you know who my father is?”

I go still. Because no, I don’t know who his father is, but I suspect I don’t want to.

“I’m going to call the police.” Or my boss. He’s intimidating, or he would be if he weren’t so sweet and cuddly like a bear. He has lots of tattoos. That’s scary, right? “I suggest you leave now.”

As I reach for the phone, there’s the rustle of fabric and the click of metal.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” the man opposite me says calmly.

The rest of them all have guns drawn.

Shiiiitttt.

They are pointing them at me.

I’m shaking as I lower my arm. My stomach roils, and every cell in my body is slamming in random, panicked directions.

“Who are you?” I stammer out.

The guy narrows his blue eyes. “You don’t know?”

Then it’s obvious. “Ivan.”

“Ding-ding! Slow but she got there.”

My sister’s boyfriend.

Oh my god. This morning she wanted to talk to me, but I was late for work, and I said we’d speak later.

“Your sister owes me a lot of money.”

“What? No.” I stare, incredulous.

Ivan’s goons have lowered their weapons now that I’ve stepped away from the phone, but I still don’t have a chance of escaping.

“She took things from me, and I need them back.”

“Things like what?” I bristle, because my sister isn’t a thief.

Ivan shrugs. “Necklaces, clothes?—”

“She said they were gifts.” I told her he’d want something in return. I knew it.