The Enforcer (Chicago Bratva #3) - Renee Rose Page 0,39

It’s grief over what Skal'pel' did to me. The pain of betrayal from a man who was like a father to me.

I point at Ravil.

No contest. He’s the better man, a hundred times over.

“Good.” There’s sympathy in Ravil’s gaze. Like he sees my pain. “Then you have my protection. Story, too, that goes without saying.”

“But?” Story demands.

Ravil raises his brows.

“It sounded like there was going to be a but.”

She’s right, it did.

Ravil shrugs. “But if and when I need you to spill, you’ll spill.”

I’m sweating but cold. I stare at Ravil.

“I don’t give a fuck who you worked for, Oleg,” he tells me, and I can suddenly breathe again. “You’ve never crossed me. Your fierce loyalty is part of who you are. I’m not going to fault you or read more into you still being loyal to someone who fucked you.”

The room seems to spin. I don’t know why I want to cry like a fucking baby.

Story seems to sense it because she nuzzles her face into my neck and nibbles my skin.

Maxim folds his arms across his chest and looks from me to Ravil. “Something tells me you know exactly who he worked for.”

Ravil spreads his hands. “I have a guess.”

“Please,” Maxim prompts. “I can’t fix if I don’t know what the fuck we’re dealing with.”

Ravil looks his way. “Have you gotten a good look at Oleg’s tongue?”

Story tightens her hand on my thumb, turns her face into my neck in solidarity.

Maxim shoots me a look and rubs his nose, knowing it’s a touchy subject for me.

Ravil answers his question, which apparently was rhetorical. “I have. And it looked pretty damn clean. Not a rough cut. No visible scar tissue. Almost like it got cauterized. Or was done by laser.”

Laser. That never occurred to me, but it makes sense. I didn’t wake up with a mouthful of blood. A cut would’ve caused me to choke on my own blood. I woke up with a stub. It was swollen and terribly sore, but it didn’t bleed.

Story swallows, pulling back to eyeball me. I pull her in closer.

I’m all right, I want to tell her.

She seems to understand because she nods.

“So how many doctors do we know who worked on the wrong side of the law? Black market surgeries? Maybe identity changes?”

“Blyad',” Maxim curses. “Skal’pel’. You worked for Skal’pel’?”

I don’t answer.

Maxim gets up and walks over. He puts his hand on my shoulder. “You can tell me. I don’t give a fuck what you did in the past, either. You’re my brother now.”

I blink at the smarting in my eyes and nod.

“So I’m guessing you can identify at least twenty guys the bratva wants dead.” Maxim says.

I shrug. Maybe. It wasn’t my job to memorize faces or names—not the old ones, nor the new ones. But yeah, maybe.

“And you don’t know where your old boss disappeared to?” Ravil asks.

I shake my head.

“I’m going to find him for you, Oleg,” Maxim promises. “And if you won’t kill him for what he did to you, I will.”

I acknowledge the unease that brings me. I don’t want to kill him. At least, I didn’t before.

Have I been waiting all these years for him to contact me? To take me back?

It seems insane, but I think some part of me was. Like I still belonged to that cruel father figure. I hadn’t forgiven him, but I was waiting.

Story presses the back of her hand to my neck, then her lips to my head. She turns to look at Ravil. “I know this conversation is important, but he needs a doctor. Oleg’s burning up.”

Chapter 9

Story

Ravil stands. “Get Svetlana,” he says to Maxim, who pulls out his phone to text. To me, he explains, “She’s a midwife who lives in the building. She should carry antibiotics.”

I want to hold Oleg. Not because of the fever although I’m worried about that. But because whatever just went down in this office seemed big. Important to him. And I still don’t understand any of it.

I’m part relieved, part frustrated to see that Oleg’s walls aren’t just for me. They’re for everyone around him—including the people he lives with and apparently loves.

Ravil called him fiercely loyal, and I realize that’s what he’s been to me, as well. He decided at some point to become my number one fan, and then nothing would sway him from that job. Now he has to be my protector.

His loyalty to me makes me feel it right back. I may normally be flighty and flakey in