“Anton—"
“This is the Bratva, Jessa,” I remind her. “We handle our disputes differently.”
“She’s still a person. Someone who’s suffered.”
She doesn’t put the blame on me, but it’s still there between us. The fighting, the violence, the anger, the miscarriage. One is a mirror image of the other. She sees herself in Marina—and in me, she sees the possibility of violence that cannot be taken back once it’s dealt.
“She brought on her own suffering,” I growl.
“I don’t want her to die.”
"You don’t want Freya to die,” I point out. “You don’t even know Marina.”
She sighs. “Maybe I just—”
“Freya doesn’t exist, Jessa. Marina needs to be stopped.”
“What can she really do?”
“She has support, that much is clear. When you were at Laurel Manor, was there staff on the grounds?”
“Yes.”
“How many?”
“I don’t know… a butler, a cook, a gardener, a few maids?”
“People who are loyal to her,” I say. “I may have hated the woman, but I never underestimated her. She can be persuasive, even charming when she wants to be.”
“She fooled me.”
I nod. “Exactly. “She’s talented at manipulation. And that makes her dangerous.”
“Her father is Bratva?” Jessa asks.
“He was. It's under the control of her cousin now,” I say. “He has the lion’s share of Rodion’s men, the ones who stuck around, which means she’ll have to go to him at some point.”
“But you’re planning on beating her to the punch, aren’t you?”
I smile. “You have a knack for this.”
She looks flattered, but then her expression turns pained. "I don’t want you to get hurt, Anton.”
“What makes you think I will?”
“She’s dangerous.”
I give her a cocky smile that I hope will reassure her. “And who do you think she learned it from?”