Page 34 of Prey of the Bratva

His gaze held mine for one last second as I put my gun down. “You’ll answer for this.”

“I don’t have your sister, Iosif. You are barking up the wrong tree. Maybe it's time you look inside the fractures inside your own tower and find out why she might have left. That would be better than attacking the Romanovs for no reason.”

“You are no one to tell me that, Kliment,” Iosif spat back, anger brimming in his gaze.

Then they pulled back, not in panic or defeat, but in control. It was clear that this fight was useless. Not unless I was willing to give them Misha’s location. Avgust was the last to move, his eyes still locked on me with something that bordered on fury before he finally turned and followed.

They were gone within minutes, and the yard fell into a heavy, ringing silence broken only by the aftermath of violence.

“You want to explain what the hell that was?” Jarek didn’t wait before meeting my gaze with barely concealed anger. I hardly had time to step back into the shadow of the loading bay before he was in front of me, anger sharp and immediate.

“You’ve got Chernykhs hitting our property asking for their missing sister,” he continued, voice rising, “and you’re standing there acting like it’s a negotiation? You are talking to them like they are here to fucking play dodgeball?”

Nico didn’t interrupt but simply watched, which somehow felt worse.

“They think you took her,” Nico said quietly. “Just like everyone else.”

I shrugged off my jacket, ignoring the pull of pain along my shoulder where the bullet had grazed through earlier. Blood had already started to seep through the fabric beneath, but it wasn’t deep. I would bandage it after I got back to the safehouse. It didn’t matter anyway.

“They’re wrong,” I said.

Jarek let out a sharp, humorless laugh. “Yeah? Then why do they sound so sure?”

“Because they’re desperate,” I replied.

“That’s not desperation,” he snapped. “That’s certainty if I have ever seen it.”

I turned my gaze to him slowly. “And you trust Chernykh judgment over your own brother’s word now?”

That shut him up for half a second.

“I trust patterns,” he said. “And right now, the pattern looks like you’re hiding something.”

Nico’s gaze sharpened slightly at that, and there it was. The fracture. The same one that had been there since Fyodor left. Trust wasn’t gone, but it was no longer whole either.

“I’m handling it,” I said.

“Handling what?” Jarek shot back. “You have disappeared ever since this entire drama started, and you have the audacity to claim that you are handling it?”

“Is it true what they said? Were you keeping eyes on the Chernykh estate before Misha disappeared?” Nico asked. The question was deliberate, and he studied me for a long moment.

“It’s not true.” I lied. Again. It didn’t feel like a lie anymore.

“Are you sure? You wouldn’t do something like that unless you have an agenda.”

“You are right. I wouldn’t, and I didn’t,” I said.

Jarek swore again, dragging a hand through his hair.

“This is exactly what you did before,” he said. “You shut us out. You make decisions alone. And then you expect everything to just what? Fall into place?”

“That’s how leadership works,” I replied evenly.

“No,” he said sharply. “That’s how things fall apart.”

That one landed. Not because it was loud, but because it was true. For a second, the space between us tightened into something dangerous, but then I stepped back.

“This isn’t a discussion,” I said.