Page 29 of Forced By the Obsessed Bratva (Yezhov Bratva #8)

Matvey paced the floor like a tortured predator possessed with rage and immeasurable fury while, by the corner, Eduard and Damien shoved Isaak forward and pressed down on his shoulders, forcing him to his knees.

I sat far behind Matvey but close enough to the scene to see the bloody saliva spilling out of Isaak’s mouth. I picked at my fingernails and chewed on my lips. My insides squeezed uncomfortably, and neither of the men knew how I secretly wished to bolt out of the room.

Groaning, Isaak coughed harshly, sputtering more blood on his shirt and the floor, and when he tried to raise his head, Eduard delivered a disastrous side kick, sending his shoe hard against Isaak’s jaw. I swallowed a gasp, thinking I heard something snap.

Matvey stepped forward. “What was your relationship with Yulia?”

I couldn’t see my husband’s eyes, but judging by the tightness of his broad shoulders and the terror in Isaak’s eyes when he looked up, I had a feeling that Matvey wore the expression of a monster ready to kill.

“I don’t….” Isaak shook his head, his voice shaking. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Standing stiff by the window, Rurik scoffed, and Isaak’s lack of cooperation seemed to piss off Matvey even more.

The first sound to break the eerie silence was a deep, dark animalistic growl, followed by an instant echo of a clenched fist flying across Isaak’s face.

Most certain that I heard a bone snap this time around, I ground down on my teeth to stifle a shriek as I watched Isaak fall on his side and hit his head against the concrete floor, folding up like a baby as he wailed in anguish.

“Pick him the fuck up,” Matvey barked.

Eduard practically yanked Isaak back on his knees, dragging him up by the hair.

It was almost painful to watch the slow torture, but a smaller part of me felt almost no sympathy.

I wanted the moment to be over, sooner than they knew, and needed to know the truth of what happened to my sister. I needed to be sure.

Matvey muttered something Russian under his breath and cursed out loud. “I’m asking you again, Isaak, what was your relationship with Yulia?”

Isaak groaned, now bleeding from his nose and through the cuts on his lips. It was one solid punch, but his face looked all battered and bruised, like an assaulted worn-out sack of potatoes.

The tension in the room was so thick that a knife could slice through it. And yet, Isaak kept mute.

“Fucking speak, dammit! Else, I swear, I’m going to cut your fucking fingers off.”

Isaak whimpered. Matvey’s threat seemed to have broken something inside him, because now, he was crying. Like crying . Real tears, bloody running nose, quaking shoulders—all of it.

“I didn’t….” His voice cracked, and he managed to look up into Matvey’s eyes. “She was…. We were….”

Watching him, I felt a tingle of infuriation slowly climb the walls of my heart. Because if this crying man did kill my sister, then I believed he deserved whatever wicked plan Matvey had in store for him. I wouldn’t even blink if he blew his head off.

“Quit stuttering and fucking talk,” Damien snapped behind him. “I’m holding onto my last thread of patience, and I swear, it’s going to snap very fucking soon.”

“We were lovers,” Isaak finally said, his head slumping forward in what looked like agony.

Rurik’s face twisted with rage, and fury etched into every sharp angle.

Eduard cursed under his breath in another foreign language, and Matvey didn’t say a word. With a quick turn, he stole a glimpse at me, and that was when I saw his jaw clenched tight and fists balled at his sides.

No one moved or blinked, but even I could feel something about to break in this room. And whatever it was, it wouldn’t be fixed easily.

“We were in love, Matvey. I wanted her, desired her…I fucking needed her more than any of you could ever understand!”

Isaak’s anger thundered against the walls and drowned in deafening silence. It seemed like the entire room held its breath, impatiently waiting for him to admit his guilt. But he looked more like a man drowning under waves of sorrow.

“The only thing I regret was not taking her away from here—from all of you much sooner.”

“And that’s supposed to mean what exactly?” an unmoved Eduard asked from the corner. One glance at him said he was ready to put a bullet through Isaak’s eyes.

Isaak didn’t care. His eyes remained defiant.

“It means I would never, never ever hurt Yulia.”

“You lie,” Damien spat, and before Matvey or anyone else could speak, he tossed a heavy silver band in front of Isaak. It hit the floor with a dull clink against the concrete, and I had to step forward to get a better look at the object.

It was a wristwatch, but it looked rusty, slightly dirty, and soiled with—

“Is that….” My stomach churned. I wanted to throw up. Struggling to find my voice, my heart sank, and my mouth went dry when I met my husband’s gaze. “Is that blood?”

“I dare you to deny that it doesn’t belong to you,” Damien growled. “Go on, say it.”

“You don’t understand. I didn’t do it. I didn’t. I saw her there. I found her.” Isaak had another meltdown, but my heart had stopped receiving every signal of empathy.

I wanted to yell at him, say something mean, and maybe rip his heart out for the pain and trauma he had caused me, but everything was still happening too fast for me to process.

Damien glared at Matvey. “Is there a reason you’re keeping this dog alive longer than he’s supposed to be?”

From the corner of my eye, I watched Matvey pull out his gun from his holster. The grip glinted as he handed it over to me.

His cousins and I looked at him, but he kept his eyes pinned on Isaak.

“Do whatever the fuck you want with him.”

I shuddered, knowing fully well that “do whatever you want” was, in reality, only one option: to kill him.

None of these men was going to let Isaak walk out of here alive. If I didn’t pull this trigger, one of them most certainly would do it with less grace.

But the real question was, did I want to spare him?

After a heartbeat of silence, I snatched the gun before I could change my mind.

Now, Eduard, Damien, Rurik, and even Isaak had their eyes on me. They didn’t speak a word, but I could hear their thoughts.

None of them thought I could go through with it.

Shit. Neither did I.

But then I remembered why we were here in the first place. I might have survived my attacker, but my sister did not. I would no longer hear her voice, talk to her…absolutely nothing. Her memory lived on in my heart, but that was going to be all I had left of her.

How could I allow her killer to walk away?

I eliminated the distance between Isaak and me, and while I mentally prepared to pull the trigger, I tugged on the sleeve of his shirt.

The gun almost fell from my grip.

My heartbeat started an erratic rhythm, and blood roared in my ears.

“Zoella?” Matvey called behind me, but I didn’t answer.

More roughly, I tugged higher on Isaak’s sleeve, desperately and frantically searching his smooth, unmarked arm for the only solid proof of the crime he committed.

“Zoella?”

I took a step back, my ears ringing like fire alarms at a station. Except for the rugged lines of his biceps and muscles, there was a surprising emptiness.

There was nothing there.

I couldn’t take it; I spun around and threw myself into Matvey’s arms. It didn’t matter that they stayed stiff at his sides; all I needed was his warmth to thaw the ice that quickly twisted my insides.

This time, Isaak’s lips and nostrils weren’t the only things bleeding. My heart bled and squeezed, until I found it too hard to breathe.

“It’s not him.” I looked up at my frowning husband. “Matvey, it’s not him.”

His eyes were as hard as granite.

“But the watch—”

“I saw it.” I trembled. “When he grabbed me…his shirt rode up. There was a tattoo. Small flames, curling up his left arm.”

I didn’t even have to turn around to feel their eyes shift in the room, including Matvey’s. His frown deepened when they all looked at the one man by the window.

Isaak started screaming and groaning louder, like a wounded animal in agony. “I’m to kill you, you fucking bastard! I’m going to fucking kill you!”

At this point, although my heart refused to believe it, I had to turn. I had to look.

Rurik’s face betrayed no emotion, but he stood too still, with one hand clenched on his left arm. He didn’t speak, and the moment stretched too long.

Then, his jaw flexed, and a soft curse slipped from his lips.

My stomach dropped.

He met my eyes for a second, and that was all that was shared before he bolted.

“Rurik!” Eduard barked, almost lunging at him.

But Rurik was already gone, pushing past Eduard and Damien, like a shadow released from hell.

The door banged open, and the night swallowed him whole.

For a breath, none of us moved.

I’d sensed it before, and now, the feeling was a lot stronger. Whatever it was that held us bound together had snapped.

And I doubted that it would ever be repaired.