Page 58 of Mission Shift

There was always a tell. Always.

I shivered, but this time, it wasn’t from the cold. Braxton had asked about the Volkovi Notchi. At the time, I’d thought nothing of it, assuming it was just his American curiosity.

But then—

His face had paled.

When I’d spoken about Nikolai killing his own parents, Braxton’s whole body had gone still. And when I’d talked about my father going after the Volkovi Notchi, he’d flinched. I’d thought he was shocked by the brutality of it all. But he hadn’t been.

No, he’d been worried.

Worried about his fucking buddy, Nikolai Volkov.

Shit!

A sharp, broken sound tore from my throat as I curled tighter into myself, digging my nails into my arms. I had told him everything.

About my father’s plans.

About the moles he’d placed inside the Volkovi Notchi.

About my past.

About my failures.

I’d trusted him.

Those big, kind brown eyes.

Those understanding silences.

Thatwas the tell—he was calm when an ordinary person, outside of the Bratva, would have reacted.

I hadn’t been spilling my secrets to a friend.

I’d been feeding information to a fucking enemy.

Darkness crept in at the edges of my vision, and I let it take me under, drowning in the bitter, unforgivable truth.

When I woke again, I immediately hated myself. I’d been such a fucking fool.

I had fallen for his act—his charm, his Boy Scout bullshit, his too-good-to-be-true innocence.

Braxton had played me.Me!

I had been trained for exactly this. I knew better. And yet, I’d let down my guard, ignored my instincts, and now it was I who would pay the price.

My blood.

My suffering.

Who knew what tortures awaited me next?

The ice bath, the excruciating pain delivered by the electric current—that had just been the warm-up.

I squeezed my eyes shut, but it did nothing to quiet the noise in my head. My body was shutting down. My brain rattled from the abuse; my muscles were screaming from the shocks. I was exhausted. Starving. Every part of me was failing, unraveling. It was the perfect scenario for breaking a person down.

I was fading.

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