Page 81 of Bratva Boss's Secret Baby

Nikandr

The storage facility looks exactly like our intelligence suggested it would, with a chain-link fence, razor wire, and industrial buildings sprawling across several acres of cracked asphalt. Yet the moment I step inside the main warehouse, unease crawls up my spine because something is fundamentally wrong with this picture.

It’s too quiet. It’s not the kind of quiet that comes from good noise discipline or professional operations, but the hollow silence of a place that’s been abandoned for months or years. The air smells like dust and rust and old motor oil, though there’s no trace of recent human occupation. There’s no cigarette smoke, no food odors, and no lingering scent of fear or sweat that always accompanies a hostage situation.

I speak into my comm while scanning the empty space around me. “Alpha team, report.”

Dmitri’s voice crackles back through the radio. “East wing clear. Nothing but empty storage units and debris.”

“Beta team?”

“West wing clear. Found some old furniture and shipping crates, but no signs of recent activity.”

Maksim appears at my shoulder with his weapon trained on the shadows between support columns. “This doesn’t feel right.”

I nod without taking my attention off the warehouse interior because every instinct I’ve developed over fifteen years in this business is screaming that we’ve been led into a trap, though not the kind I was expecting. This isn’t an ambush waiting to happen but misdirection designed to waste our time and resources…unless it’s more than that. I recall the last trap he set for us, springing it once we were in a vulnerable position, and having his marksmen fire on us. This feels delayed, not just like a delay.

Not ignoring my instincts, but pressing on with business for the moment, I say, “Gamma team, status report.”

A voice answers a moment later. “The basement level clear. We found what looks like old surveillance equipment, but it’s been offline for a long time.”

I key my comm again. “Delta team, talk to me.”

Silence stretches through the radio frequency, followed by more silence that feels ominous. “Delta team, respond.”

Antov’s voice cuts through the interference, tight with urgency. “It’s dead here, but I have a bad feeli—” The transmission cuts off just as a distant explosion rocks the ground beneath my feet, and the sound rolls across the industrial complex like thunder, followed immediately by a wail of car alarms and the distinct crackle of burning debris.

I’m already running toward the exit before I finish speaking. “Delta team, respond. Pavel, what’s your status?”

Raw, agonized screams that turn my stomach and send adrenaline flooding through my system echo through my earpiece while someone shouts about structural collapse. In the background, I hear the roar of flames and the groan of twisted metal that tells me we’ve lost people.

I sprint outside and immediately see the black smoke rising from what used to be the south entrance to the complex. The section of the building that housed Delta team’s entry point is partially collapsed, with debris scattered across a hundred-yard radius.

I grab Pavel, from the Gamma team, by the shoulder as he stumbles away from the destruction with blood streaming from a cut across his forehead. “How many?”

He looks at me with a stunned expression. “There were four men on the Delta team, all inside when it went off. We got three out, but Sergei…” He shakes his head. “Didn’t make it.”

The words strike me like bullets to the chest because Sergei Volkov was twenty-three years old, married for six months, with a baby daughter on the way. Now he’s gone because I followed false intelligence into a carefully orchestrated trap.

Dmitri approaches with a tablet in his hands and a grim expression. “Sir, we’ve detected drone surveillance over the blast site. Someone’s been watching our response.”

I grab the tablet and study the real-time feed. “How long has it been active?”

“At least twenty minutes and maybe longer.”

“Can you trace the signal?”

“I have our tech people working on it, boss. The drone’s transmitting to a relay station about two miles southeast of here, but the actual control signal is coming from...” He pauses to check his readings. “A warehouse complex approximately one mile from our current position.”

Maksim leans over my shoulder to look at the screen. “Show me the exact coordinates.”

The tech specialist brings up a satellite map with GPS markers indicating the drone’s flight path and control signal origin, and the moment I see the location, recognition strikes me like a fist to the gut.

It’s the same building where we found Yaraslov’s body ten years ago. The same concrete floor where my brother bled out while Vadim and his people made their escape, with the same loading dock where I knelt beside his corpse and swore an oath of vengeance that shaped every decision I’ve made since.

As I stare at the screen, it fuzzes out before a message appears:Plan B.

“He knows his first attempt failed, so he’s…inviting me to the fallback location,” I say softly.

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