Page 72 of Prey of the Bratva

The command tore out of me like a gunshot, sharp enough to cut through everything. Every head in the room turned. Every movement stalled for half a second before the weight of it hit. Everyone knew who I was, but no one in Miami had seen who I was. I had been lying low since I had come here, but the time for lying low was gone now. I needed to be Kliment Romanov again. The Kliment Romanov, who had half of Russia bowing down to him.

I needed to be Kliment Romanov if I wanted Misha back. My Misha.

“I want to make sure that every exit,” I continued, already moving toward the comm panel. “Every road, every port, and every private airstrip is locked down. I want everything shut down now. I don’t care if we don’t hold the power of locking things down or if they fall in enemy territory. I don’t care if we have to pay off the authorities or buy rights. I don’t care if we have to kill people or start wars. I want everything locked down now!”

“Kliment—” Nico said, walking towards me.

“Now means now,” I repeated, colder.

“Kliment, we cannot just—” Avgust started speaking, but I raised my hand, cutting him off mid-sentence. I neither had the time nor the patience for any of this.

“Is Misha here?” I asked, even though I already knew the answer. Everyone knew the answer.

“No,” Sera replied. “Sidorov, her, and several other soldiers and enforcers have disappeared in the blackout.”

“Exactly. So I will not be hearing arguments about how something cannot be done. Misha isn’t here, and that is the onlything we need to be focused on. They cannot kidnap her and believe they will escape from this alive.”

Avgust didn’t argue. No one did. Because whatever they saw on my face wasn’t strategy anymore. It was something else.

“Viktor,” I snapped.

“I’m here,” Viktor replied instantly, already stepping towards me.

“Activate all safehouses and our complete network of underground soldiers and informers wherever they are in the world. I want no exceptions. I want eyes on every movement in this city, in Russia, and anywhere around the world within the next five minutes.”

“It’s already happening, boss. Everyone in Miami is already active; I am hitting up bases in Russia and making that happen as well.”

“Good.”

I turned, my gaze locking onto the Chernykhs. Iosif was watching me with a kind of stillness that mirrored my own from moments ago. Avgust looked like he was two seconds away from tearing the building apart with his bare hands. And Timofey looked angry. That was what I needed right now because I knew if there was something that would bring Misha back, it was anger.

“Where could she be? They couldn’t have gone far, so if we just search up the perimeters, we might find her,” he said, his voice raw, violent, barely restrained.

“I am looking at all movement in the perimeters already,” Alina said, walking towards us, tablet in hand. “But everything is still. There are no cars, no bodies, no human movement whatsoever. I think they could be hiding somewhere in the area.”

“Everyone, start searching the warehouse,” Iosif shouted, already redirecting forces.

I turned towards the tunnel entrance, my gaze tracing the path they had used, the precision of it, the timing. Everyone’s eyes were on the tunnel as realization settled in. They had played it smart. They knew we were coming, and they had complete intel on Misha’s team and her plan, and that is why they were waiting for us. For her.

This couldn’t have been just Sidorov’s planning. It felt bigger.

“I think Volkov has some hand in executing this. He must have asked Sidorov to bring Misha,” I said.

“I think so too,” Fyodor added. “Volkov is clever to a fault and always has eyes on everything.”

“He planned this,” I continued, my voice flattening into something colder than anything I had let them hear before. “Sidorov is just a puppet, and this warehouse is a stage for something bigger. And we walked into it exactly how he wanted, and they got Misha just the way they wanted to.”

Timofey let out a sharp, humorless laugh. “Then we go after him. Sidorov. Volkov. Whoever else. I don’t care. We must go after them and get Misha back.”

“We will,” I said.

But not like this. Not blindly and unprepared. I moved back towards the main table, already pulling up every feed we had access to, every surveillance stream, and every intercepted channel.

“We need to track flight logs in case they take her somewhere,” I ordered. “Check for all private departures taking place in the next two hours and also after that and make sureto cross-reference them with shell companies tied to Russian networks. It shouldn’t be too hard to track their movements.”

“Already on it,” Nico replied.

“Also check for port activity,” I added. “Anything that moved before we hit the compound. For all we know, they could already be on their way to Russia or someplace else through ships.”