“I’m going to take his Bratva,” she says. “I’m going to run the Ivanov and Stepanov Bratvas simultaneously, and I’m going to do a better job than he ever did.”
“You really think his men will follow you?”
“I know they will.”
“Why?”
She gives me a secretive smile and turns towards the window. Her stance is casual now. She still has the gun in her hand, but she seems to have forgotten about it.
While her gaze is turned to the window, I slowly try and get the drawer open. I’m on pins and needles the entire time, praying the drawer doesn’t creak and give me away.
“You know, I wanted my father to be alive to see this,” she says contemplatively. “I wanted to sit him down and force him to look at what I could do.”
She sinks down on the window seat and pulls her legs up. For a moment, it feels like we’re just two friends hanging out and talking. That is, if you ignore the gun in her hand and the dagger I’m trying to retrieve.
While her gaze is averted, I grab the blade and manage to shove it into the back of my tights. It rests there, cold and sharp.
“Come over here, Jessa,” Marina says. “Let’s have a little chat. Woman to woman.”
Walking is uncomfortable with the blade tucked away, but it’s more of a mental block than anything else. I’m half-terrified the knife is going to fall out and cut me open. Thankfully, my leggings are binding enough that they hold the dagger in place.
All the same, I move slowly. I have to walk past my phone to get to the window seat, but there’s no way I can bend now with the dagger lodged where it is. Not that Marina would let me, anyway.
“Take a seat,” she commands when I reach her.
“I’ll stand.”
“Suit yourself. No beanbags here for you to sit on, right?” She cackles at her own joke, a callback to the night we met in her apartment. It occurs to me now that she probably wasn’t even drunk. Just faking to buy my confidence. Not that it matters, but still—there were signs.
I glance out the window and notice a handful of Anton’s men manning the south entrance into the estate. Everything looks calm and serene.
Clearly, Yulian isn’t aware that Marina is in here with me.
“You remember, before you knew my real name, we were friends, weren’t we, Jessa?”
“We were never real friends,” I say bitterly. “Freya was never real.”
She shakes her head like that disappoints her. “I did like you, Jessa. I’d still like you… if it weren’t for the fact that you fucked my husband.”
“He’s not your husband.”
“The only way he’ll stop being my husband is if I die or he does.”
“Anton’s a lot stronger than you are.”
She sighs like she’s bored. “Yes, people have been telling me that for most of my life. My father told me the same thing. It’s why I wanted to prove to him that I could do what he didn’t think was possible. That I could run both Bratvas. I could be the don of all dons. Isn’t that a great story?” she asks, turning her blue eyes on me. “A woman succeeding in a man’s world. It’s all about breaking glass ceilings, Jessa.”
“You’re trying to spin this as some sort of feminist triumph?” I ask. “You really are delusional.”
She shrugs. “I’ve proved countless men wrong over the years. Why not one more?”
I’m tired of listening to her psychotic aspirations. “Why did you take Chris?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” she asks. “I knew you would insist that Anton come and rescue him.”
My stomach drops. “Where is he now?”
“Sitting alone in a house about twenty-five miles from here,” she says. “I injected him with quite a hefty dose of Zolpidem, though, so I’m not sure if he’s still breathing.”