Page 17 of The Russian's Bought Bride

“Maybe, but we’re not done. We’ll find them again, and next time, we’ll go harder.”

Harder and more direct. The kind of approach my brothers would appreciate.

“Extreme measures?”

“If it comes to it,” he murmurs like it’s simple.

Letting that settle, my irritation cools into something more focused, able to see where the plan needs to adjust, and how it’s still viable.

“They won’t expect us to wait,” I say slowly.

“Then we don’t,” Ruslan replies. “We’ll regroup and hit them where they think they’re safe. Then, that’ll be the end for them.”

A faint smirk tugs at the corner of my mouth. That’s more like it.

“Alright. Keep tracking, and I want updates the second you have something concrete.”

“You’ll get them.”

I can practically hear the shift in his posture through the line, knowing that when he sets his mind to something, he’ll get it no matter the cost. It’s how we’ve made it this far.

“But there’s the other matter,” he says carefully, already letting me know exactly where this is going. “The victim. How is she?”

“She’s awake,” I tell him with an exhale, well aware that it’s a completely separate issue now. “And taking it as well as you’d expect.”

Ruslan considers his words, then fills the silence with a steady exhale. “That complicates things.”

“Everything about this is complicated now.”

“She’s a liability.”

My gaze drifts toward the door despite not being able to see the spare room from my position, and I imagine her in there, curled up, broken, and trying to process a world that just collapsed under her.

“No,” I say after a beat. “She won’t be. She’s contained.”

It doesn’t feel like the right word, but it’s the one that fits the situation.

“Then we deal with it like everything else.”

That means we adapt and move forward, which seems to be a trend for now.

“Yeah,” I murmur. “I’ll handle it.”

“We’ll get another shot at them,” he adds with a note of optimism. “This isn’t over, Nikolai.”

Straightening my posture, I roll my shoulders back and allow that notion to settle in. It certainly isn’t.

“Good. Call me when you’ve got something.”

“Will do.”

The line clicks dead, leaving me in silence again.

I stand there for a long moment with the phone still in my hand, and the weight of everything else settles into place.

While I lost the clean ending and the easy path, it isn’t all gone.

Now it’s going to be messy and more personal than I wanted, but I don’t have a choice now.