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“I should tell you about my brother.” I pulled my knees up, wrapping my arms around them. “He was a fighter. Fight club circles and all that. He went missing four years ago. He was my only family. I went crazy looking for him, reaching out to the police and almost everywhere else. When trails went cold, and I understood there was more to it, I started to dig into underground fight clubs. I was so sure that the Bratva, specifically Nikolai, was responsible for his disappearance. It was only a week before our marriage when I realized it was all Graham.”

He nodded slowly, frowning in understanding as I went on.

“I built my entire career on a story that turned out to be wrong. I aimed my grief at the wrong target for years. I’m not asking you to forgive the Golovins; I’m asking you to understand that stopping Graham matters more right now than punishing men who’ve at least honored some kind of code.”

“That’s a considerably more complicated situation than my office initially understood.” He rubbed a hand across his jaw. “I came here today expecting to pressure you into cooperating. I wasn’t expecting this.”

“Please. Whatever happens with Nikolai afterward, deal with that separately. Right now, boys are disappearing into Graham’s system every month. That has to come first.”

“I’ll take it back to my office,” he said after a long silence. “I can’t promise you anything beyond that.”

He left then, visibly more conflicted than when he’d arrived, pausing once at the door like he wanted to say something further before apparently deciding against it.

I sat back down among my scattered notes, feeling lighter than I had in days.

It was only twenty minutes later when the floor shuddered beneath me hard enough to knock a stack of papers off the coffee table. I heard a distant boom rolling up through the building’s foundation from somewhere far below, deep enough that I felt it in my chest before I actually heard the sound.

I was on my feet before I could think, adrenaline flooding through me faster than thought, my pulse suddenly roaring loud enough to drown out everything except the radio crackling to life across the room.

“Mrs. Golovin!” The security radio on the console by the door came alive. “We have a breach. Get to—”

I didn’t hear the rest as the doors slid open, revealing men I didn’t recognize, weapons already raised. Two guards from the hallway detail burst in behind them, gunfire erupting immediately, deafening in the confined space of the living room. I dropped behind the couch on instinct, heart hammering, ears ringing from the noise. I watched as one of Nikolai’s men went down hard against the marble floor, a spreading dark stain already blooming across his shirt.

“Move!” One of the remaining guards grabbed my arm, hauling me toward the service hallway, away from the elevator and whatever was still coming through it. We made it three steps before more men appeared from the stairwell exit, cutting off the only other route out, boots pounding against the floor.

I fought. I clawed and kicked, but there were too many of them, and the guard trying to shield me went down under a blow that cracked audibly through the hallway.

A hand closed hard over my mouth, the taste of leather and gun oil sharp against my lips. Another gripped my arm hard enough to bruise, dragging me backward while I fought uselessly.

The last thing I saw before they forced a bag over my head was the wreckage of my own living room, papers scattered across marble now streaked dark with blood that wasn’t mine.

I thought of Hayes leaving barely twenty minutes earlier, wondering with a horrified clarity whether these people had been watching this building closely enough to time this exactly right, waiting until Nikolai’s security had briefly loosened around a federal visit.

I thought of Nikolai’s face the last time he’d left, about the calm certainty in his eyes when he’d promised nothing would ever touch me here.

I thought of the child growing inside me, utterly unaware of the chaos exploding around us both, and felt a fresh surge of terror sharper than anything I’d felt for myself.

Graham.

Of course, it was him.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Nikolai

Yuri’s phone rang in the middle of the briefing, and I noticed the color drain from his face in a way I’d only seen from him twice before. The soldiers gathered around the table went quiet almost immediately.

“Boss. The penthouse,” he said, phone still pressed to his ear. “It’s been hit.”

“Camila.” I was already on my feet.

“They took her.”

Everything inside me went cold in a way I’d never experienced, not during any negotiation, any betrayal, or any threat against my own life or any of my brothers’. The room around me seemed to recede into something distant and unimportant compared to the three words Yuri had just said.

They took her.

They took Camila.