Page 32 of Kept By the Bratva
We pulled up to the club, parking sloppily and quickly among all the other cars and trucks. First responders milled about, and firefighters continued to extinguish the flames claiming the building.
“Stand back,” a fireman shouted when Dmitri and I ran up to the crowd.
Nosy pedestrians stood around gawking. Dancers, mostly naked, were covered up with blankets from the ambulances and fire trucks, and a huge crowd of guests and clients were grouped up away from the line of fire.
Smoke hung heavily in the air, and I coughed alongside my brother as we tried to push through the throngs of people in our way.
“That’s my business,” Dmitri replied, taking a claim as a representative of the Bratva. Harrow’s, like all of our businesses, wasours, but this simplified it.
“He said it was his property,” the man said with a smirk, pointing at Ivan.
He’d gotten through, currently speaking with a few men. One looked like a uniformed cop, but it wasn’t Steven Murphy. Maybe the fire marshal.
“It’sourproperty,” I told the guy holding us back from getting closer. Details like the property deed had to come later. “Ivan!”
He beckoned us closer, striding toward us as we approached despite the fireman’s orders to stay back.
“The fucking Cartel,” Ivan said. He gave me a hard look, furious. “As soon as the soldiers called in, Maxim watched the footage. Several of the Cartel members came in and set the fires.”
Dmitri rubbed a hand over his face. “How the fuck did they get in?” They were on our radar.
“I don’t know.” Ivan looked back at the cops. “But we’re losing time to look.”
We spread out, slipping back through the crowds to seek out the assholes who had to have started the fires claiming the whole building. They wouldn’t have gone far. They’d be standing around to watch the disaster unfold.
It wasn’t until we’d slipped away from the mass of first responders and crowds out front on the street that we found them.
Dmitri and I ran down the side alley, the very one I’d followed Amy down recently. Two Cartel members we recognized sprinted that way, and we gave chase.
As soon as we caught them, I realized why.
They’d slowed down, on purpose.
They’d stopped at the corner, where a perpendicular alley cut across. And waiting there were more of the fuckers. They outnumbered us, lying in wait. They attacked, hitting us with the element of surprise.
Dmitri fought back harder, but I was hit too quickly. I defended myself the best I could. Violence ran in my blood. It was how I thrived in this cruel world. With the vision of Amy waiting for me back at home, I gave it my all to ward off all the assholes as they teamed up on us.
Before long, with blood dripping from my wounds and contusions littering my body, I was knocked down with a sickening hit to my abdomen. Sucking in air as I dropped to my hands and knees, I heard Dmitri’s groan.
I lifted my face to my brother, watching as they shoved a bag over his head.
They want us alive.
Torture awaited. I was sure of it. I spat out a mouthful of blood just before they jammed a coarse covering over my head too.
We expected them to be mad about how we’d broken in and stolen their women. It was a huge blow to their business. And that was the risk we’d taken. We’d hit hard knowing it would make an impact.
They hadn’t waited long to strike back. It was bad enough that they wanted to burn one of our businesses down. If anyone died in there, it would be another black mark against the Bratva, guilty for getting any civilians killed.
Taking us, though, that was a whole other strategy. If they wanted us dead, an eye for an eye for killing their men when we stormed in and took the women, they would’ve just shot us here in the alley. They wouldn’t have bothered fighting us to capture us.
They were up to something else. I was sure of it, and torturing us was the first thing that came to mind. It wouldn’t be a new experience for me or my brother, and I doubted it would be the last.
These fuckers wouldnotsee to the end of me, though. There was no way in hell. I had too much to live for, too much work to do inmaking the Bratva strong again, in helping Alek start a new future for our family.
I had to live for Amy, for the little time I could have with her before she had to be removed from my life.
In the darkness, I seethed, pissed that I would be delayed even more from returning to Amy with the status I’d left her in, her pussy glistening for me, her ass thrusting back so I could spear my tongue in her cunt. A growl of frustration nearly choked me, but now wasn’t the time for it.