Sold to the Bratva King novel · Chapter 4 of 32

Chapter 4: The Red Can

"Keep walking," Matvei said beside me.

He hadn't touched me. He'd just moved, and suddenly he was between Kent and me, and the steps felt narrower.

Kent looked up at him. Kent had to look a long way up.

"This is family business, Zorin."

"Then go home to your family." Matvei's voice was so quiet the reporters on the bottom step leaned in. "Before I take an interest in you."

Kent laughed. He was the only one.

Then he went down the steps, his camel coat over his arm, and didn't look back.

In the car nobody talked until we were on the expressway.

"What coat?" Matvei asked.

I held the red coffee can in my lap the whole way home.

That night I put it on the long steel table in the warehouse kitchen and pried off the lid.

Zoya sat cross-legged on a stool. Matvei stood across from me with his arms folded.

I didn't explain. I just took the bags out one at a time and laid them in a row.

Every one was a sandwich bag, zipped and folded. Every one had a strip of masking tape and my handwriting.

The first one held a strand of brown hair and a broken silver bristle.

HAIRBRUSH, LEFT EAR, AGE 9.

Zoya read it and stopped smiling.

The next was a padlock key on a loop of string.

CELLAR SPARE, MADE IT MYSELF FROM WAX, AGE 14.

Then a stack of folded index cards in Lindsey's round, pretty writing.

Zoya unfolded one. Matvei read it over her shoulder.

TALKED BACK AT BREAKFAST, CELLAR THREE DAYS, NO DINNER.

There were forty-one cards.

Lindsey liked to keep records. She just never wondered who else did.

Then a dish towel, stiff and brown.

RIBS, KENT, AGE 20, PARKER SAID I FELL.

Matvei's hand closed slowly on the edge of the table.

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