Page 121 of The Bratva Enforcer and His Virgin Bride

The doors close behind him, leaving the room silent once more.

I turn back to Sofia. She’s watching me, the pad resting against her knees, her eyes wide with a mixture of awe and lingering concern. I cross the distance between us, sinking onto the edge of the coffee table directly in front of her. I reach out, taking her hands in mine, my gaze locked onto hers.

“You’re the strongest, most brilliant woman I know, Sofia,” I say softly, the absolute truth of it vibrating in my chest. “What you did today… your father would be incredibly proud.”

A soft, beautiful blush creeps up her neck, coloring her cheeks as she looks down, a shy smile pulling at her lips. “Lukyan…”

I lean forward, gently lifting her chin so she has to look at me, and press a deep, lingering kiss to her lips. When I pull back, I run the pad of my thumb across her cheekbone.

“I don’t need the code,zaychik. Keep it. Destroy it, lock it away, do whatever you want with it. You did this for your family, to honor your father’s memory, and that belongs to you. I don’t want a single piece of it.”

Sofia searches my eyes, her expression shifting into something deeply resolute.

“I’m giving you the code, Lukyan,” she says, her voice steady and full of unwavering certainty. “Take it. You can use it to access the dormant accounts, secure your network, and protect everything you’ve built. I want you to have it… because I love you. I trust you with his legacy.”

I look down at the numbers written in her elegant script, then back up at her, shaking my head slightly. “Sofia, you don’t have to do this. You don’t owe me or my organization anything.”

She lets out a soft, exasperated laugh, her eyes shining with affection as she leans forward and hooks her uninjured arm around my neck. “What part of ‘I love you’ don’t you understand, Lukyan? We’re in this together now. Your safety is my priority too.”

A profound tightness squeezes my heart, a feeling so foreign and overwhelming it almost robs me of my breath. I kiss her one more time, hard and full of a fierce possessiveness, before I force myself to stand up.

“I have to go,” I murmur, checking the magazine of the weapon holstered at my hip. “I’ll see you soon.”

Sofia stands up with me, her fingers hooking into the belt loops of my jeans, anchoring me to the spot for one last second. Her eyes track the lethal intent rolling off my shoulders. “Please be safe, Lukyan. You’re all I have left.”

I wrap my large hands around her waist, pulling her flush against my chest, burying my face in her hair to inhale her clean, sweet scent one last time before the slaughter.

“I’ll never leave you, Sofia,” I promise against her skin, my voice a solemn vow. “I’ll be back in time for dinner. I expect you to be waiting for me.”

She nods against my chest, and with a final, lingering squeeze, I release her. I turn on my heel and walk away, the heavy elevator doors swallowing me whole as I descend into the dark to finish the man who dared to touch what is mine.

We find Karl’s hideout in less than half an hour.

The place is completely isolated, a desolate shipping container terminal near the freezing northern docks, probably chosen by Karl as a desperate, temporary refuge.

It is a maze of rusted steel and dark corners, but the location offers absolutely little advantage for him once we arrive. He thinks he’s hidden; he doesn’t realize I own the very air he’s breathing in this city.

The operation is executed with absolute, terrifying precision. My men move like ghosts through the fog, systematically cutting off every single escape route, securing the perimeter, and forcing Karl into a direct, inescapable confrontation.

The fight that follows is controlled but brutal. I don’t approach this as a negotiation, an interrogation, or even a standard tactical exchange. My objective is singular, cold, and absolute. Every movement I make is deliberate, each pull of my trigger leading toward an inevitable, bloody conclusion.

My men move through the terminal like a scythe through wheat, terminating all of Karl’s remaining mercenaries with lethal efficiency.

Within minutes, the heavy gunfire dies down to a deafening silence, leaving Karl completely alone, cornered against the cold steel of a crimson shipping container, entirely at my mercy.

“You’re a businessman, Lukyan,” Karl sneers, his voice shaking slightly despite his best efforts to hide it. “You kill me, and you lose the key to the international banking network. You don’t know the broader implications of what that code represents. We can split the yield. We can run the global market together. You need me to navigate the fallout.”

I walk toward him slowly, my heavy boots crushing the gravel beneath my feet. I don’t stop until the barrel of my weapon is resting directly against the center of his forehead.

I no longer engage on those terms. The dynamic has shifted completely, and his corporate threats mean nothing to a man who almost lost his entire world forty-eight hours ago.

“I don’t care about the market, Karl,” I tell him, my voice a dead, icy whisper that strips the last remnants of arrogance straight from his face. “And I don’t need your navigation. Sofia cracked the code. It’s ours.”

Karl’s eyes widen in absolute, paralyzing horror as the realization hits him that he’s completely lost.

“I told you at the warehouse that the only way you’d leave alive was if you gave me Ben and the books,” I murmur, my finger tightening over the cold metal of the trigger. “You chose wrong. I’m taking your life for Sofia. And I’m going to make sure her father is finally avenged.”

He starts to speak, his mouth opening to scramble for one last bargain, one last lie to save his skin. Normally, I’d like to engage him a little bit. I’d play his game, fuel him with a false sense of hope that maybe, just maybe, I’ll let him live, only to completely dash that hope by taking his life at the very last second. I enjoy the psychological torment of it.