The God (Bratva Blood #3)- S.R. Jones Page 0,2

She’s much more relaxed around Cassie, and she hasn’t known her as long.

Then again, who wouldn’t be relaxed around Cassie? K calls her his sunshine, and she is a golden ball of happy, fluffy-haired, positivity. She makes my teeth ache some days. Funny how she saw something in such a miserable bastard as K, then fell head over heels.

Justina is reading a business magazine, and she looks up from it grinning.

“Hey, Andrius,” she shouts.

“Yeah?” he asks without turning to look at her.

“You know how much shit you give me for my handbag habit?”

“Yeah?”

“Well, it says here they’re a better investment than classic cars or art.”

Finally, he turns to her, panting from the running around he’s doing, and stares. “Seriously?”

“Yeah, says here, some designer handbags now perform better than almost any other collectable investment.”

“Well, shit, go buy some more.” He starts laughing, but I’m filling it away.

The way I do with all the facts I learn.

See, us men, we think the things we like— cars, art, hell, even cigars, are serious; and the stuff women like— handbags and jewels are frivolous. Women however have been making their own economy for a long time now. They don’t sit around discussing their bags the way some men discuss their investments and collections. They buy them and sell them though—to one another. In some cultures, jewelry is where money and wealth are collected and handed down. It goes from one generation to the next to be worn around the necks of the daughters and granddaughters and so on.

It’s not a surprise to me that handbags might outperform art as investment pieces. Women have their own money now and their own power. Good for them too. I prefer women to men. Men are shits. Mostly.

I trust about three men in the entire world. K, Andrius, and Vasily. That’s it. Maybe Ilya, another Pakhan, to a degree, but not fully. Damen, I’m thawing toward, mostly because he’s helping me dig into Dasha’s life, but I wouldn’t feel comfortable with him the way I do with K now.

Men have beaten me, abused me, threatened me, and lied to me. Every bad thing that has happened to me has been at the hands of men. Except for one thing. The worst thing, and that happened because of the only woman to betray me.

Dasha.

I’m thinking about my beautiful ballerina again when the ball comes flying my way. I catch it for once and am full of triumph. Which way do I run? I hesitate for a moment. It’s a moment that costs me.

Two seconds later, two hundred and fifty plus pounds of muscle collides with me, taking me to the ground.

I hit hard with an oomph as the air goes out of me. Pain hits my stomach at the winding, and then I can’t worry about that because my face explodes with pain as it smashes into the dry ground.

Holy fucking shit, it hurts.

I groan, and the weight on top of me disappears as K’s gravelly voice reaches me.

“Bohdan?”

Hands pull at me, and I’m turned over to see K and Andrius looking at me with concern. Cassie is running over too, her blanket on the ground.

My face feels like someone detonated a bomb in the middle of it.

“Your nose.” K shakes his head. “Shit, I’m so sorry.”

“It’s broken,” Andrius says. “Like you broke mine.” He turns to K. “You’re the breaker of noses. You should have a coat of arms made with this as your title.”

K’s face falls. “Fuck, Bohdan. I’ve messed you up good and proper.”

“Another fucking hospital trip,” Andrius says in English as Cassie reaches us.

My eyes are watering. Tears pouring down my cheeks as they stream from the agony in the center of my face. I try to sniff, but can’t.

“How do you know it’s broken?” I ask Andrius, automatically speaking in English too, the way I’ve grown used to when Cassie is around.

“Because it is no longer like a nose, but a splat in the middle of your face.”

What? A splat? That sounds bad.

“You’re not going to be so pretty now, no matter what they do with you,” Andrius says. “Come.” He gives me his hand and pulls me up. “We must take you to the hospital.”

He turns to K. “Sometimes you don’t know your own strength.”

K looks so damn upset at himself. I pat his arm, consolingly. “It’s okay,” I tell him.

“Yeah, it’s not,” he says. “It was an accident. You went down at a weird angle.”

“Because his head has been in the clouds