Page 84 of Sexting the Bratva Beast

Ivana doesn’t move. She’s so still, she could be a shadow, or a figment of my imagination.

Then the door opens a crack, and a sliver of light appears between it and the frame.

My view is restricted by the books on the shelf, so I start at the floor, at the heavy boots crossing the threshold, and swivel my head a little as I make my way up. By the time I reach the person’s face, the contents of my stomach are threatening to spill all over the heavily patterned carpet.

But I recognize the intruder instantly.

Yuri Asimov. The man who claimed to be my biological uncle.

The face is so out of context here in Andrej’s Russian family home, that I couldn’t move even if I wanted to. I’m frantically trying to make him fit the picture of the grenade-wielding psychopath in my head, that it takes a couple of beats for me to register what happens next.

There’s a muted thud as Yuri’s body wholly enters the room, and then he staggers backwards, his spine colliding with the wall behind him as if he walked into an invisible forcefield.

Something dark and wet splatters the pale wall.

His face darkens.

And I stare until my eyes water and the tear in his coat swims in and out of focus.

He’s been shot. Ivana shot him. Only there was no ear-splitting sound when she pulled the trigger because she must be using a silencer.

Ivana stands up and faces him squarely. “Get out.”

A smile twitches Yuri’s mouth. If he is in pain, he isn’t letting it show.

“Is that any way to greet a friend?”

His voice grates on every nerve in my body, so I’m still a beat behind when I process what he said.Friend?

“Leave now, and I’ll provide your cover. I’ll make sure that the Ivanovs don’t pursue you.”

Yuri doesn’t move.

Ivana has her back to me, but I know that her expression is completely neutral.

“Well now,” Yuri says, “as tempting as that sounds, we had a deal.”

“The deal is off.”

His face darkens, and a shudder runs down my spine. “The deal is off when I say it is, and I haven’t gotten what I came for. Yet.” He pauses. “Hand her over, and I’ll be on my way. You’ll never have to see me again.”

Bile burns the back of my throat.Hand her over. Who is he talking about?

But I already know the answer even before Ivana speaks.

“They are getting married. She is wearing the Ivanov emerald. She isn’t a part of this world. Whatever you think she has done, you are wrong. So, this is your last chance.”

Yuri’s smile is unpleasant, and I get the same sense of uneasiness that I felt when I met him for coffee in the café back in Chicago. “Too late.”

His movements are fluid. I barely catch the glint of metal before another shot is fired. This time, the sound bounces off the walls and resounds inside my head. Books fall from shelves somewhere behind me, pages flapping like wounded birds.

Ivana must retaliate with her own shot, but he dodges it easily, diving onto the floor and aiming another bullet directly at her.

It’s hard to follow what’s going on from behind the bookcase, but a silent scream lodges in my throat when Ivana falls backwards, bouncing off the couch and hitting the floor with a muffled whump.

More gunfire reaches my ears from elsewhere in the house.

The bodyguards must’ve heard the shots fired by Yuri and are coming to investigate.