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Chapter 19

CHAPTER

NINETEEN

NATASHA

"Where the hell are Enzo and Luca," Dimitri frowned as we moved back into the house. "You're going to need to phone Maxim." He was texting frantically on his phone. "That Irish guy phoned him. That's how we knew where you were."

My hands were still shaking badly, my laptop forgotten in the courtyard, back near Victor's body. I couldn't pretend to be unaffected but was thankful I was unharmed. I was lucky. That's what I needed to remember — and an accessory to a crime, I thought belatedly. Now, I was really living the Bratva life. I huffed a laugh.

Maddox and Pike had tried to coax Eli into the kitchen for drinks and a milkshake, but he was stubbornly lurking in the hallway, watching them with his dead eyes as the blender whirred loudly, drowning out the quiet tension still in the air. They argued over the correct ratio of ice cream to milk for the perfect milkshake, trying to fill the air with ridiculous banter that sounded insane even to me. Eli looked tense, his eyes darting around the room as if expecting trouble to come barreling through the door any minute.

He had washed his hands off in the sink, blood whirling around the white porcelain like it was just any Tuesday. I'd be concerned about DNA evidence and shit, but Dimitri probably was all over that.

I caught his eye and gave him a small smile, hoping to ease some of the tension. He didn't smile back but looked away. I knew he was on edge after what had happened in the courtyard, and honestly, I didn't blame him. Victor had shaken all of us, but Eli wasn't particularly affected. Whatever their relationship was seemed complicated — twisted. Eli looked like he was waiting for the other shoe to drop. Victor had said things in the courtyard that I didn't understand, but Eli had. I wondered what that meant.

"Hey, Eli," Maddox called, waving a spoon in his direction. "You want chocolate or vanilla?"

Eli blinked, clearly not expecting to be included in the conversation. "Uh, chocolate, I guess."

Maddox grinned and added a scoop of vanilla ice cream to the blender. "Good choice. Can't go wrong with the classics."

"Unless you're Dimitri, who thinks adding an entire sleeve of Oreos is a good idea," Pike muttered, rolling his eyes.

Dimitri smirked. "Just trying to make it interesting, man."

"Interesting? More like a heart attack in a cup," I teased, stepping up beside Dimitri to grab a handful of crushed cookies. "But hey, I'm not complaining."

Pike chuckled, the sound low and comforting. "Guess we could all use a little sugar rush after tonight."

Eli remained quiet, his eyes flicking to the door every few seconds. His unease was palpable.

"Come on, Natty, you have to message Maxim," Dimitri whined.

"Who's Maxim?" Eli asked, his eyes narrowed. This was good. Curious was good.

"That's my cousin and Dimitri's brother," I answered, then decided to give him a little more, coaxing him from the darkened hallway. "Maxim is like the big brother Ronnie and I needed," I offered.

"Ronnie?" Eli took a step. "The girl with the blonde hair?" I could practically feel Diimitri tense next to me at the question, coming alert as he slipped my phone into my hand.

"Right. My sister Veronica," I said lightly. "We call her Ronnie for short. Maxim stepped up and helped give us a home when we had nowhere to go. He paid for things when she was sick."

"Sick?" He paled and looked like he might throw up. "Is she sick?"

I frowned. "Well, when she was young, she had leukemia. She was very sick. She still gets sick sometimes now. There are some things that we are watching carefully. Her lungs and heart." I shrugged. Ronnie's health problems were tied to some aggressive treatment, but we were thankful for every day that she got to be with us. Eli was still as he looked at me.

"She could die?" he asked. Everyone had turned to him.

"Everyone dies," I said softly. "You know that. We are lucky for every day we have. We have to live it with love and joy," I told him gently, but the anguish in his eyes was unnatural as he glared at me.

"No, I won't let her." The words spit out furiously, angrily, like bullets. I took a step backward and ran straight into Pike, who wrapped a protective arm around my waist, his hand splaying around my belly as Eli disappeared into the darkness.

"What the hell?" Maddox mumbled. "Your brother is a little whacked." Pike was silent, but we were all pondering the implications of what had just happened. None of them were good.

"Let him go," Dimitri said furiously. "Speaking of Ronnie? Where the fuck is she? She should have hot-footed it up here," Dimitri dialed a number and started to head out of the kitchen, giving the hallway the evil eye. I was sure he wasn't down with the whole vibe of Eli being into Ronnie.

"I'm going to call Max." I turned my phone over as I looked into the hall's shadows. "Maybe you can find out where Enzo and Luca are? Help Dimitri?" I suggested to Pike. "Max will worry until I call. He's probably going crazy."

"Sure." His lips ghosted against the nape of my neck. Dimitri wasn't wrong. Ronnie should have been up here already. She had access to the cameras, and there was no way she didn't hear that shot.

Dimitri must have noticed, too, because he pulled out his phone and quickly shot off a text. "Luca messaged," he said, his voice casual but with an underlying edge of concern. "They should be back soon. He and Enzo took Ronnie on an errand." He frowned. That was weird. Ronnie didn't typically go places, and I would have thought Luca and Enzo would have said something to Dimitri. I turned to frown at him, but he waved me off.

Hitting Max's contact, I focused on my call, giving Max the rundown and listening to him yell as I explained what had happened. "Is that fucker dead? He better be dead!"

"Yes, yes, and yes. I'm fine. Everyone's fine," I soothed. Alphaholes were exhausting sometimes.

"O'Kelly couldn't even believe it when he saw it. Swore up and down to me that there was someone in the shadows. I would have thought he was fucking with me." Max was panting; he was so worked up, and then there was silence. "Goddamn, he'll never let me live this down. You're okay, though, right?"

"Yeah. I'm good. Listen, we have some loose ends to tie up. I just wanted you to hear from me that I was fine." I had turned towards the kitchen, watching the three men whispering together around milkshakes—probably conspiring to cover up the crime scene in the courtyard. I listened to him bitch a little more and then said my goodbyes, clicking off the line and setting my phone on the counter.

Just then, the door to the house opened, and Ronnie's voice sang out. "I'm home. Was I missed?"

She seemed to sense the tension as her eyes flicked to each of us and quickly shifted gears. "Anyway, I've got something for you guys," she said, her excitement bubbling up again as she set the laptop bag on the counter and started to pull out her gear. "I was digging around on the dark web—in the usual places—and found this chatroom that's buried pretty deep. Most of the conversation was just noise, but one user was talking about a location—coordinates. They mentioned a place that matches the description of where Victor was last seen. I pulled the logs and the IP addresses, and I'm still tracing them back, but I think I've got something solid."

"A chatroom?" I asked, my voice low and tense.

"Yeah. I thought it'd lead us to Victor, but it's something else. I still haven't figured it out, but it's connected to him. It's a lead," she beamed, holding the laptop out. "I can totally crack it. Luca went in and grabbed it for me. I stayed in the car like a good girl." Jesus, she actually traced some psycho and grabbed a laptop. I really needed to talk to her.

"Well, Victor's not hiding anymore," I snorted. Ronnie looked at me, confused. Enzo and Luca had come in after Ronnie and were having a heated conversation with Dimitri. Fists were thrown, but I heard the words ‘body' and ‘courtyard,' so I guessed they were on clean-up duty. Served them right after taking my sister on some half-assed mission without clearing it.

"What do you mean?" Her nose wrinkled in confusion.

"He's dead in the courtyard," I deadpanned.

?

"Interesting." But her expression shifted from confusion to a mild disinterest when I mentioned that it was Victor. "Why was he here?"

"He came after Natasha," Maddox said with a shrug. "We aren't sure why. Eli helped out."

"Are you okay?" Concerned, Ronnie stepped forward, her palms gently sweeping over my arms as she sought reassurance about my well-being. There wasn't a scratch on me, but her face reflected her deep-seated worry that I might disappear.

"I assure you, I'm perfectly fine. I was rescued just in time," I said, hoping to alleviate her concern. She nodded in response, but her eyes were still shadowed with doubt.

"What about Eli," she asked, trying to sound nonchalant but failing miserably.

"He's gone, but it's funny that you ask that. He was interested in you too," Dimitri's voice was silken with intent as he leaned forward on the counter. "Why is that?" Her eyes narrowed slightly, and I knew that look all too well. She was curious about him, the way Ronnie got when something or someone caught her attention in a way that made her want to dig deeper, burrowing beneath the surface until everything was exposed and bleeding.

"Was he?"

I sighed, stepping closer to her. "You okay?" I asked softly, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear. "You left the house."

She nodded, her eyes still trained on the dark hallway. "Yeah, I'm fine. I had a lead." She bit her lip. "I wish I had met Eli. While he was here." She looked disappointed.

Ronnie typically showed little more than a surface interest in boys—men. She liked looking at them or commenting on them, but she didn't engage in dates or anything.

Ronnie shrugged, leaning against the counter. "I don't know yet. I've never seen him in person — just on camera when he leaves me things." She looked away from us, embarrassed. "There's something there, something… I can't explain it." She looked at me, her blue eyes sharp with determination. "I'm going to figure it out." I barked out a laugh. If I were Eli, I'd be running scared from my sister. She was like a bloodhound. If he thought he could hide from her, he'd be wrong.

"I'm not sure he'll even come back here, Ronnie. He doesn't seem like a social guy. He seems dangerous," I added in a last-ditch attempt.

"I know," she replied, her tone dismissive as she returned to her laptop. "But I can be dangerous too." I wasn't sure my sister was up to the danger that Eli could rain down on her, but I kept my mouth shut.

Dimitri's phone buzzed, pulling our attention back to him. He frowned at the screen, then looked up at me. "Luca says they've handled it. Victor's body is gone."

"Good," I muttered. It was one less thing to worry about. But now, as I glanced at Ronnie, I realized there were new concerns that involved my sister's sudden fascination with a man who seemed as unpredictable as a storm.

Ronnie began typing furiously on her laptop, glued to the screen. I watched her, my heart tightening with concern. She was too focused, too intent on whatever she was digging into, and I knew it wasn't just about Victor anymore. She was going to find out everything she could about Eli.

Pike moved closer, his hand brushing against mine as he asked me questioningly. "You okay?"

"Yeah," I nodded, but my eyes were still on Ronnie. "Just worried about her."

"Me too. We'll need to keep an eye on her," Pike said quietly.

"I know, but Eli," I murmured, my thoughts churning. "He's different."

"I don't disagree," he said sadly. Pike's hand tightened around mine, his touch grounding me. "We'll keep an eye on her. And on him."

Ronnie didn't notice our exchange, too absorbed in whatever she uncovered on her laptop. I sighed, feeling a mix of pride and apprehension. My sister was brilliant, but sometimes I wished she wasn't so damn fearless.

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