Page 17 of Cruel Juliet

He stammers through the pain. “Thepakhanis… coming. He’s coming here.”

“Nikolai?” I press. “He’s here? In New York?”

“He wants to… to finish you himself,” he gasps. “Wipe you out. All of you Gubarev trash.”

The old man himself—the head of the Danilo Bratva—leaving his cushioned seat among whores to come here, into my city. His ego must be through the roof if he thinks he can take me out.

I straighten up and hand the hammer back to Oleg. “Good,” I smirk. “That’s exactly what I wanted to hear.”

The prisoners whimper, broken and bleeding. But I don’t give a shit. For the last seven months, I’ve been picking off Danilo men like rats in a landfill, and they’re no different. I’ve kept these assholes from planting a single flag in my territory.

And now, the old man thinks he can just walk in and wipe us out? He’s out of his goddamn mind, but that works in my favor.

Because as soon as he’s close enough to reach, I can take out the root of the problem.

All I have to do is get my hands around the old Danilo bastard’s throat. Then this war is as good as won.

I stand over the prisoners. Hell, I’m even smiling. The part of me that needed release finally has it, and it feels fucking incredible.

But right on the heels of that happiness comes a return of the thoughts that have plagued me all night.

Because killing Nikolai will affect Sima. I wonder what she’ll think when I finally put a bullet in her estranged father’s head. I haven’t even told her about Anatoli yet. She has no idea I already killed her brother.

Which means I’m going to have to tell her, sooner or later. That conversation is coming, and I already know it’s going to tear through what little ground we still share. She’ll hate me more than she does already.

I picture her face when she finds out. She’ll scream that I’m a monster, that she wishes she’d never fucking met me.

That makes two of us. My life would be much easier if I’d never fucking met her, either.

But it doesn’t matter. I’ve met her now. I know what life feels like with her, and what it feels like without her. I’ll take the yelling, the cursing. I’ll let her spit in my face if that’s what she needs to get over it. None of it can be worse than what I’ve already done to her.

And what she’s already done to me.

The prisoners moan in their chairs. I signal to my men without looking. “Finish it.”

Two shots echo through the warehouse. The Danilo bodies slump forward in the chairs, lifeless.

I wipe my hands on a rag and toss it aside. “Dump them outside Feliks’s house,” I order. “Make sure he sees what happens when his rats crawl into my streets.”

Both men nod. They start dragging the corpses across the concrete floor. Dark streaks appear, but I’m not concerned. They’ll be washed out like all the others.

I step out, my mind already on the next move.

Feliks. Nikolai. This war is coming to a close, and it’s going to end on my terms. I’ll make damn sure of that. And after that, I’ll face Sima with the truth.

Even if she fucking hates me for it.

9

SIMA

It takes precisely three days before I’m ready to start climbing the walls.

I’ve already measured the distance between the dresser and the window ledge to see if it’s doable. Unless I became an Olympic high jumper overnight, which I didn’t, it is not. And even if I was—which, to reiterate, I’m not—I think the dresser would topple and collapse under my pregnancy weight.

Meanwhile, my anxiety never shuts up. And when I say never, I do meannever. Sleep is a cruel rumor now that I don’t have an outlet to burn off my energy.

Usually, dogs at least get a backyard. I guess that puts me lower on the totem pole than the house pets, then.