Twilight Sins (Kulikov Bratva Book 1)

“We can’t stay here.” Mariya grabs Yakov’s laptop and my hand, tugging me towards the door.

I’m not resisting, but it also feels like my legs aren’t working. Yakov told me his world was dangerous—he told me I was in danger—but I didn’t understand it until those first shots rang out.

“Where are we going?”

“Upstairs.” Mariya pokes her head through the door, looking around to make sure there’s no one in the hallway.

Neither of us speak as we hurry up the stairs and down the hall towards my room. The house is bizarrely quiet. No staff milling around. The guards who were on the porch earlier are gone. Probably to take down the threat, I tell myself.

But inside, my stomach twists.

Mariya closes and locks the bedroom door the moment we’re inside. Then she moves to the windows. “This is the best vantage point in the house. There’s a reason Yakov made it his room.”

The lawn spreads out below us. I can see black shapes advancing across the grass.

“Get away from the windows! They’ll see you.”

She shakes her head. “They’re one-way. As long as we keep the lights off, they can’t see in.”

Mariya props the laptop open in one arm and scans the property through the windows. The silly, troublemaking teenager I’ve come to know is gone. She is all business. All Bratva.

I, on the other hand, am shaking from head to toe. As the adult, I should be taking care of her. But Mariya grew up in this world and it shows.

“What are we going to do?” I ask.

“We’re going to let the guards do their jobs. They’re trained for this.”

Shots fire over and over and over again. There are men dressed in all-black mowing down guards on every single security camera. There have to be three dozen men out there, at least.

I’m not sure how you could ever be trained enough to face something like that.

Mariya stares down at the screen, her lower lip pinched between her teeth. Then the screen goes dark.

“Shit.” Mariya quickly presses the spacebar again and again but the screen stays black. “The cameras are off.”

“Is the computer dead?”

“Maybe.” She curses again. “Or… or maybe the guards shut down the alarm. Maybe the threat has been neutralized.”

It’s hard to believe after what we just witnessed, but I can’t help but hope she’s right.

Then there’s a loud bang from downstairs.

We both spin towards the door. My heart is thundering, my body perfectly still as we wait for something. Anything. More noises, loud voices, for someone to tear down the bedroom door.

Nothing.

I take a step closer to Mariya. “Do you think they’re inside the house?”

“I think… The guards are searching the house to make sure they found all of the intruders. I’m sure that’s what it is.”

She drops the laptop on the bed and moves towards the door, but I grab her hand. “Where are you going?”

“I need to know what’s going on.”

“No. No, you don’t. We don’t need to do that at all. We can stay here. Hide until⁠—”

“Until what? Yakov and Nik aren’t here. I’m the only one left.”

Are Yakov and Nikandr dead?

Mariya can’t mean it that way. There’s no way Yakov and Nik are gone. It’s impossible to imagine the two of them, broad and strong and confident, just… gone.

But why isn’t Yakov answering his phone? Where are they?

If this was a planned attack, they could have been killed the moment they stepped off the property. Now, Akim is barging in here, knowing he won’t have to face Yakov’s wrath.

I’d know. If something happened to Yakov, I’d feel it, wouldn’t I?

“I’m going to make sure everything is safe,” she says.

It’s a bad idea. I feel it in my gut. But I also know I can’t stop her.

So when Mariya opens the door, I force myself across the room and into the hallway after her. I owe Yakov that much.

I’ve lived in this mansion for months, but it seems different now. Possible threats loom everywhere. We pass door after door and I keep whipping around to make sure no one is creeping up behind us.

At the top of the stairs, Mariya stops and ducks down. The front door is hanging open, but the hum of cicadas is the only sound floating in from the lawn.

“The guards on the porch are gone,” Mariya whispers.

“Is that normal? For them to leave their post?”

Her mouth twists to the side. Her non-answer is answer enough.

No. It’s not normal at all.

She stands up. “I’m going to go out there and see what’s going on.”

I grab her wrist and drag her back to the floor. “Mariya! No. I can’t let you do that.”

“You don’t get to ‘let me’ do anything,” she says with a sad smile. “I’m going, Luna. You can’t stop me.”

“Mariya,” I rasp, “it’s not safe. I can feel it. Something is wrong. We should hide and wait for Yakov and Nikandr to get back here.”

She lays her hand over mine and squeezes. “It might be too late for that.”

“No.” I shake my head as tears well in my eyes. “They’re fine, Mariya. They’re coming back. They’ll be here soon. I know it.”

I don’t know it. Mariya is right: we can’t sit and wait for help that might never come.

I’m shaking, so she drapes her jacket over my shoulders. “You’re pregnant, Luna. You should stay here.”

“And you’re a kid! I can’t let you go fight alone.”

She shrugs casually. “I’ve been in weapons training and Krav Maga classes since I was four.”

“I don’t even know what that is.”

“Exactly. No offense, but you should stay here. You’d just distract me.” Mariya grins, almost hiding the anxiety burning in her eyes. “The guards have probably handled the threat by now, anyway.”

I want to believe her.

I try to.

But as Mariya creeps down the stairs and through the front door of the mansion, every cell in my body is screaming that this is wrong. Yakov would never have let her go out there alone.

Yakov isn’t here.

I grip the railing just for something to hold onto. For some way to keep myself from flying out the door behind Mariya and dragging her back inside.

“She’ll be fine,” I whisper to myself. “She knows what she’s doing.”

Just as I’ve almost convinced myself everything will be okay…

That’s when the screaming starts.