Page 39 of Prey of the Bratva

“And that’s a problem?”

“Yes.” I leaned forward slightly, my eyes locking onto his. “Because burning everything doesn’t dismantle a network like this. It forces people underground, making it harder to trace and destroy properly. And these people eventually resurface when things have calmed down.”

He watched me closely.

“You needed evidence and confirmation of the roots of the network?”

“I needed confirmation,” I corrected. “Before I could act.”

“Alone.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

I held his gaze.

“Because to my brothers,” I said slowly, “I will always be someone they need to protect. They will never let me step forward and fight because they will be terrified to let me get out there.”

The words came easier than I expected. Silence settled between us again, and he didn’t speak for several minutes as if waiting for me to continue.

“So the woman you called from your burner is someone who gives you intel?” he asked at last, clearly trying to understand the whole thing.

“She does get intel for me, but she is a major part of my team. We are a woman-run mission, and all of us are linked to this entire chain in one way or another. Every single one of us wants to end it, and we are ready to do anything to make sure it does eventually end. But my healing is delaying everything,” I said quietly. “And I don’t have anyone else to do this.”

The words felt heavier now. More real. “I only have myself.”

That one landed because I saw it in his expression. In the way something shifted behind his eyes. It was not pity or sympathy but something else. Something deeper. The final hand came down between us, and I didn’t even realize how we got there. Only that I won cleanly and decisively.

I leaned back in my chair, exhaling slowly.

“Your turn,” I said, but he didn’t move or speak. He just watched me, and for the first time since this started, he didn’t have a question. The realization settled between us, quiet and absolute.

The game was over, but something far more dangerous had just begun.

Chapter 10 - Kliment

I had seen violence shape men into monsters and loyalty bend under fear so many times that I had stopped believing anything new could unsettle me. But it felt as if I had been proven wrong. Significantly wrong. It was not the bloodshed that happened at the docks or the war that was constantly creeping closer between our two families. It was not even the fact that I had chosen to hide a Chernykh under my protection while her brothers tore through my operations looking for her.

It was simply her.

It was the way Misha Chernykh spoke about walking into darkness alone as if it were simply another calculated decision. It was the way she did not ask for recognition, did not expect protection, and definitely did not wait for permission. She had stepped into something vile and deeply rooted, knowing exactly what it could cost her, and she had gone anyway. She had chosen a struggle for herself, fully knowing the consequences of choosing it.

And she had done it all without the backup provided by her brothers. Without certainty and without fear.

I stood in the dim light of the safe house living room long after she had finished speaking, her words still settling somewhere deeper than I cared to examine. The silence between us was different now. It was no longer sharpened by suspicion or layered with hostility. It was… quieter. Heavier in a way that had nothing to do with threat.

“I have never met someone as fearless as you, Misha,” I said finally, the words leaving my mouth before I could reconsider them. They were blunt and unpolished, stripped of anything resembling diplomacy. That was the only way I knewhow to speak when something was true. Misha Chernykh had earned my respect with this one revelation, and I was not afraid to tell her that.

She stilled slightly across from me, as if the praise had been unexpected.

I couldn’t blame her.

For a brief second, something flickered in her eye that looked almost like uncertainty, but it disappeared just as quickly as it came. She leaned back in her chair, crossing her arms lightly as if dismissing the weight of what I had said. I could see she wasn’t used to it. She wasn’t used to praise when it came to something like this, and she most definitely only expected judgment. The women in our world were not celebrated the way men were.

But with Misha, I was not about to let it happen.

“Fearless is just another word people use when they don’t understand the consequences,” she replied.