Page 13 of Prey of the Bratva

And that is when the gunshot came.

The man holding me jerked violently, his grip loosening instantly. Warm blood sprayed across my face as his body collapsed backward. I didn’t think before moving. I rolled to the side and, ignoring the scream of protest from my leg, I pushed myself up just enough to see another man dropping to the ground in front of me. It was a clean shot, center mass, and delivered without hesitation.

The air shifted and changed, but what followed wasn’t chaos. It was control. Precise, surgical violence. From my position on the ground, I could see another shot being fired as bodies kept hitting the ground as if they hadn’t even gotten the chance to retaliate. There was no wasted movement and no panic. No noise beyond the sharp crack of gunfire and the heavy thud of bodies hitting concrete. I forced myself to focus, vision sharpening through the haze of pain.

A silhouette moved through the space.

He was tall and effortless, clearly in control of the situation.

He didn’t rush or react but continued to eliminate. Another man tried to run, but he hadn’t even taken two steps before the final shot was echoed in the warehouse, followed by heavy silence. The kind that came after something irreversible.

For a moment, I didn’t move or speak. My ears rang, the world narrowing to fragments as I noticed the blood on the floor, the metallic scent thick in the air, and the distant crash ofwater against the docks outside. Then I tried to stand, but my foot gave out immediately. The pain hit harder this time, sharper and deeper. My balance collapsed, and for a second, I thought I would hit the ground.

But I didn’t.

A steady hand caught me, unyielding and firm. I stilled and looked up slowly, finally meeting his eyes. They were icy blue and cold but didn’t appear empty or cruel. Simply controlled and assessing as if he too was judging what he had just walked into. Like he was looking at a problem and already calculating the solution. My pulse pounded, adrenaline still roaring through my system, refusing to settle.

He didn’t speak or ask if I was okay.

He didn’t even offer reassurance, but simply looked at me as if taking me in. Measuring. The same way I measured everything. For the first time that evening, something shifted inside me. It was not fear but something much sharper. Something that bordered on awareness. I had been seconds away from death, and this stranger standing in front of me, like something carved from restraint and precision, had just changed the outcome.

I straightened slightly despite the pain, forcing my weight onto my uninjured leg.

“I had it handled,” I said, my voice steady despite everything.

One of his brows lifted slightly as if he were amused.

“If having it handled was being on the verge of death, you sure had it handled.”

I held his gaze, and for the first time in a very long time, I didn’t immediately disagree.

Chapter 4 - Kliment

She did not look scared. Not one bit.

Most people did when they realized how close they had come to dying after a gun had been pressed against their temple. They either broke down, blustered, or filled the space with panic or denial, trying to reclaim control over something that had already slipped through their fingers.

Misha Chernykh did none of that. Instead, she held my gaze as if she were trying to figure me out in a way that allowed her to look through my very soul. Her sharp blue eyes only made it look easier for her. Even now, when she was bleeding and unsteady, and her body was already beginning to register the full extent of the damage that had been done to it, she did not look away once. There was no gratitude in her eyes yet, but there wasn’t fear or relief either.

Only awareness. Sharp, calculated awareness, which I had come to realize was her statement expression. But today, there was something sharper beneath it which almost looked like defiance. I felt it settle into me in a way that was both unexpected and inconvenient. Up close, she was not what I had anticipated. I had seen her from a distance for weeks while I had studied her patterns and analyzed her movements. I had cataloged her as a variable because she seemed useful, unpredictable, and worth observing before eliminating.

But distance had flattened her. It had not accounted for this.

Her hair had come loose from whatever restraint she had forced it into earlier, dark strands that were streaked faintly with blood now clinging to her face. Her skin was pale beneath the warehouse lighting and was now marred by a thin smearacross her cheek that only made the sharpness of her features even more pronounced. Her blue eyes were clear, focused, and entirely present despite the pain she was clearly suffering. They were locked onto mine with a steadiness that most men twice her size failed to maintain.

She was beautiful. No one in their right mind could deny it. The thought was immediate and unwelcome, and I ignored it as quickly as it had come to me.

“You’re bleeding,” I said instead.

Her lips curved slightly, humor flickering in a place where it did not belong. “I noticed.”

I shifted my grip on her instinctively as her weight faltered again. Her injured foot gave out the second time she tried to stabilize herself, but this time, I did not wait for her to compensate. I moved before she could shirk away from my touch. If she could shirk away from my touch. I slid one arm behind her back and the other under her knees, lifting her cleanly off the ground before she could protest. She inhaled sharply, the sound cutting through the quiet.

“I can walk,” she said.

“No, you can’t.”

“I was doing fine before you decided to interfere.”