10 Days to Ruin (Ozerov Bratva Book 1)
10 Days to Ruin: Chapter 28

Blood pools around this dead man’s head like a macabre halo, seeping into the cracks of the concrete floor. To be frank, this ritual is getting a bit tiresome.

How many times am I going to stand over another dead Serbian until Dragan gets the message that this city is undeniably mine now? How many moles will I have to whack before the lesson is learned?

I toss down the tire iron I just used on him with a clatter. “Tell your boss this territory is mine,” I snarl to the other man whimpering at my feet. His front teeth—what’s left of them—glitter crimson in the dim light. “Next time he sends rats into my house, I’ll mail your spines back in a jewelry box.”

Feliks leans against the wall by the exit, chewing gum. “Ask him about the shipment.”

I unbutton my ruined sleeves, rolling them past ink-dark wolves snarling up my forearms. “Rhetorical, brother. He’s got nothing left to say.”

The man gurgles. One hand claws toward my boot.

I crush his fingers under my heel.

Sighing, I turn my back on the mess and step out into the night for a breath of fresh air. Feliks comes with me as other Bratva soldiers fill in to clean up what I left behind.

“Cigarette?”

I shake my head. “I’m good.”

He does a double-take. “Who are you and what have you done with my best friend?”

I bark out a harsh laugh as I take a seat on an abandoned milk crate. “Fuck if I know, man. Nothing seems like it used to anymore.”

“Uh-oh. Them’s contemplative words. You know what happens when we go down that road.”

He’s not wrong, but goddammit, I just can’t help it lately. My thoughts churn and twist and morph in ways they’ve never done before.

My phone vibrates. I’m embarrassed by how quickly I whip it out of my pocket to look.

It’s not Ariel, though. It’s Zoya, demanding I pick up the borscht she made me before it expires. In the six years she’s lived above that restaurant, her fridge has never worked, but she refuses to let me replace it.

“It’s the girl, eh?” Feliks chimes in. “Ms. Front Page herself.”

Three hours ago, Feliks held open his phone to show me Ariel’s latest column. Front page of the Gazette’s Metro section: Cantonese Dumpling Carts Standing Ground in the Shadow of Gentrification. Next to her byline is a photo of her leaning against a food truck, ink-smudge hair spilling over the collar of that ridiculous puffy jacket.

“You’ve been mum on the subject,” he presses when I don’t respond. “The people demand updates. How’s the Capital-R Romance going? She asking you for dick pics yet?”

I roll my eyes. “Someone should teach you the meaning of the word ‘subtlety.’”

“Nahhh,” he demurs. “Life’s too short to beat around the bush. Besides, it falls to me to pry the truth out of you. God knows everyone else is too scared to do it. So, let’s hear it.”

“No.”

“C’mon, Sasha. You’re doing that thing again.”

“What thing?”

“The Jasmine thing.” He pulls up an adjacent crate and takes a seat facing me. “Brother, do you forget I was there fifteen years ago? I know what you did. I know what it cost you. And here you are, doing the same thing again. Locking your heart in that little box because you think love makes you weak. Trying to be brutal to make up for the guilt of being human.”

Motherfucker. Feliks is doing that serious face of his. He’s such a fucking goof all the time that it’s all the more powerful in those rare moments when he chooses to get somber. Makes him hard to deny.

The streetlight above us flickers. Somewhere in Chinatown, a car alarm wails.

I sigh. “Who died and made you my therapist?”

“Sarcasm won’t get you out of this one, I’m afraid,” he says sympathetically. “But fine—suit yourself. If you don’t wanna open up, then maybe I’ll just swoop in and show Ariel how a real man⁠—”

I’m on him in a fucking instant, shoving him against the brick. His shoulder blades crunch the crumbling mortar. “You don’t look at her.” My thumb digs into his windpipe. “You don’t talk about her. You don’t breathe near her. Understood?”

Feliks grins from ear-to-ear. “Y’know, for someone who allegedly doesn’t care, you’ve sure got a hard-on for this charade.”

I release him, scowling at how easily I took his bait. I should know better. I do know better. But when it comes to Ariel, I just… react.

He coughs, rubbing his neck. “Make it make sense, Sash. If this is just a power play…”

Thunder growls above us. It is just a power play. It has to be. I need this to get Leander’s loyalty. No bride means no alliance. No alliance means no victory. No victory means I spend the rest of my life exterminating Serbian rats in various filthy warehouses, fighting a war of attrition that leaves everyone worse off in the end.

“You ever think…” Feliks unwraps a new stick of gum and pops it into his mouth. “What if it was real?”

“‘Real’ is overrated. My father taught me that.”

“Cool story. But you’re not Yakov.” He lobs the gum pack at my chest. “What I’m saying is, what if you stopped sabotaging this thing? What if you let yourself want her instead of scheming ahead of time how to survive losing her?”

A foggy chill soaks through my shirt.

“Or does that scare you too much?”

I stare at the puddle spreading around my boots. For a minute, I’m twelve years old again, knees bleeding through my school uniform. Father’s voice rasping in my ear like rusted barbed wire. Crying’s for bitches and orphans. You’ll be both if you don’t shut up.

I crush a stray piece of trash under my heel. “You’re getting sentimental in your old age, man.”

“Says the ssyklo.”

The warehouse door clangs open and the cleanup team shuffles out with a pair of body bags. We watch them load both into the black van idling at the curb, then clamber in and drive away.

Feliks braces his hands on his knees. “I’ll say one more thing and then I’m done, I swear. Jasmine made her choice. You gave her that. You think you’re honoring her memory by martyring yourself on this shit?”

I say nothing. At my throat, my scar burns.

“It’s been fifteen years,” he says. “Let. Her. Go.”

When I close my eyes, I see Ariel licking mustard off her thumb in the park. Lips chapped from the cold. Snowflakes caught in her lashes.

I see other things, too. Endgame. Wedding bells. Her in white lace, trembling as I slide a gold band onto her finger. Pretending it’s only for the cameras.

Then what? What happens five years from now? Ten? Does the war you’re fighting stain the hem of that pretty white dress? Does she start looking at you with hate in her eyes instead of lust? Or worse—what if she looks at you with love in her eyes? Think you can handle that burden, Aleksandr?

Feliks stands, joints popping. “You deserve a life, brother. Not just an empire.”

“She’ll destroy me if I do that,” I whisper under my breath. I don’t mean to say it out loud, but it just slips out.

I brace for what Feliks might say. He could mock me, belittle me, echo the voices in my head that are already doing the same thing.

Instead, he claps a hand on my shoulder and grins. “Maybe she will. But what a way to die.”