Page 57 of Forbidden Bratva Virgin

The rats sold us out to Customs at the dock, and they’d done it with their scumbag partners, who’d been stealing our crates.

Eventually, when we were done getting names, I was going to fucking end the both of them. It was always the same. A life ended, another name crossed off, and I’d move forward, unburdened.

I’d stopped keeping count years ago.

Faces blurred together—pleading eyes, curses spat through broken teeth, the last ragged gasps of men who thought they were untouchable or smart enough to stab me in the back and get away with it. None of it mattered. They all ended the same.

Maybe there was a time when I hesitated. When I thought there was a line between who I was and what I did. But that line had long since disappeared. Now, there was only the focus and determination of getting the job done.

Watching Damir deliver blows in quick succession to the groaning asshole, I never felt better. And my head had never been clearer.

I pushed myself off the desk, stalking closer to Damir. Putting a hand on his shoulder, he stepped aside, and the groaning man fell to his knees before me, his breath coming in ragged gasps, blood dripping from his split lip onto the floor.

His eyes searched mine, begging for mercy, but there was none.

“You know why you’re here.” I didn’t raise my voice. I didn’t need to. His fear did all the talking.

“Please,” he stammered, spitting out blood. “Miron, I…I can fix this. I swear I didn’t need to. My wife is sick. I needed the money. But I can fix this, I promise.”

I sighed and crouched down, leveling my gaze with his.

“You think this is about fixing?” I murmured. “You stole from us. Lied to my face. Had the feds breathing down our necks, and, on top of that, your stupid squad created big trouble that called thePakhan’sattention. That isn’t something you fix. It’s something you pay for. And I don’t care if your wife is sick. You should have come to me for the fucking money!”

He whimpered as I pulled my knife from its sheath between my belt. A beautiful thing, it was. Sleek, sharp, and ever-ready to do the job. I let the tip trace a slow path across his cheek, the pressure just enough to break the skin, to make him flinch.

“You know, you had your chances to come forward and own up to your shit. Maybe then I’d have let you live. You could have gotten your boys to return the things they stole before I put Damir on the job, but you didn’t. You thought you wouldn’t get caught,” I continued, almost bored. “I let you breathe longer than you deserved. And yet here we are.”

His sobs started then, pitiful, desperate. I’d seen it all before. Regret meant nothing when it came too late.

I pressed the blade to his throat, not enough to kill. Not yet. Just enough for him to feel how close the end was. My other hand gripped his jaw, forcing his teary eyes to meet mine.

“Tell me,” I said, tilting my head. “Was it worth it?”

His lips trembled, but he had no answer. I smiled. Then I gripped his neck and started slicing through the thick skin of his throat.

The man’s screams tore through the room. Blood dripped from my knife, slow and steady, onto the floor beneath him. I saw the color drain from his face. I watched him writhe, his breath coming in ragged sobs.

Then….

A creak. Barely a whisper of sound. But enough to know that someone else was here.

Damir’s head snapped to the door at the same time as mine did, and Hazel stood there.

Frozen. Eyes wide, breath shallow, hands trembling at her sides. For a moment, neither of us moved or made a sound, except the man in front of me, gasping for breath.

The look in her eyes, filled with horror and disbelief, cut deeper than any blade ever had. She shouldn’t have seen this. Not me like this.

I let out a slow breath, adjusting my grip on the knife. “You shouldn’t be here. How the fuck did you get here? Who the fuck let you in?”

Hazel didn’t answer. Didn’t blink. Just stared. At me. At the man. At the blood. She looked pale and was trembling. Her wide, disbelieving eyes flicked between me and the other bloodied body beside my desk.

She looked sick. Disgusted. Like she was seeing a stranger instead of the man she’d come to find.

She had something to say to me—I saw it in the way her lips parted, in the way her hands clenched at her sides. But whatever words she had died the second she saw me like this. The second she saw what I really was.

I clenched my jaw. “Hazel.”

Nothing.

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