Page 62 of Bratva Daddy
"I know," he said against my hair. Then, pulling back, looking directly into my eyes: "I love you."
The words hung between us, impossible and perfect and absolutely the wrong time.
"I—"
"Shh." He pressed a finger to my lips. "Tell me after. When this is over, when you're safe, tell me then. Give us both a reason to survive this."
The elevator dinged—our floor.
He kissed me once more, quick and hard, then stepped back. The man who'd just said he loved me vanished, replaced by the pakhan. He pulled the panic room door most of the way closed, leaving it cracked just enough for me to hear what came next.
"Stay alive, little one," he commanded, and then he was gone, striding toward the elevator where six men were coming to take me from him.
I pressed against the door frame, gun heavy in my hands, watching the monitors as Alexei positioned himself with clear sightlines to the elevator. Through the crack, I heard the elevator doors open. Heard boots on marble. Heard the sudden, sharp bark of gunfire that meant the war had come home.
The first Kozlov soldier died before his foot cleared the elevator threshold.
On the monitor, I watched Alexei move like something mythological—brutal, graceful, inevitable. His knife opened the man's throat in one smooth motion, arterial spray painting the marble I'd walked on barefoot this morning. The soldier's hands went to his neck, pointless, already dead but not knowing it yet.
Alexei was already moving, using the dying man as a shield while the second soldier raised his weapon. Two soft pops from Alexei's suppressed pistol—chest shots, grouped tight enough to fit under a playing card. The second man crumpled, his tactical gear useless against someone who knew exactly where armor didn't protect.
The third soldier tried to retreat into the elevator, but Alexei grabbed his vest, yanked him forward into a knee that shattered facial bones with a crunch I heard through reinforced walls. Another knife appeared from somewhere—sleeve, belt, thin air—and found the gap between helmet and vest. The soldier dropped, twitching twice before going still.
Three men dead in less than ten seconds.
Movement on another monitor caught my eye—southwest stairwell, three more soldiers ascending. They moved carefully, checking corners, maintaining overlapping fields of fire. Professional. Lethal.
"Southwest stairs," I whispered urgently, knowing he couldn't hear me, willing him to somehow know anyway.
Then Mikhail appeared on that screen, and my heart nearly stopped. Blood ran from a gash in his forehead, his usually perfect suit torn at the shoulder, but he moved with the same lethal purpose I'd learned to recognize in all the Volkov men. He came up behind the ascending soldiers like a ghost, piano wire appearing in his hands—where had that come from?—and the rear soldier died silent, pulled backward into the shadows.
The second soldier turned, rifle rising, but Mikhail was already inside his guard. They grappled against the stairwell wall, and even through the grainy monitor feed, I could see Mikhail's experience overwhelming the younger man's strength. A quick twist, a muffled crack, and another Kozlov soldier stopped being a problem.
The third soldier got a shot off—the sound echoed through the building—before Mikhail's thrown knife caught him in the throat. He tumbled down the stairs, rifle clattering against concrete, and didn't get up.
Another monitor showed the lobby. Dmitry had arrived with what looked like a small army—eight men, all armed, moving through the space with coordinated precision. They flowed likewater around obstacles, each covering the others' blind spots. Two Kozlov soldiers who'd been stationed in the lobby as lookouts lasted exactly as long as it took Dmitry to reach them. He didn't use weapons, just his hands, breaking one man's neck with a twist that looked almost casual, crushing another's windpipe with a strike that lifted the soldier off his feet.
But I couldn't look away from Alexei.
He'd moved into the living room now, and something was wrong. A Kozlov soldier had gotten behind the couch—my coloring books were probably still there, crayons scattered across the coffee table. They circled each other like predators, and I saw Alexei favoring his left side slightly. When had he been hit?
The soldier lunged, and they crashed into my carefully arranged reading corner. The lamp I'd picked out last week shattered. They grappled against the bookshelf, and I saw the soldier land a punch that snapped Alexei's head back, blood spattering from his split lip.
Alexei laughed.
Actually laughed, the sound carrying clear through the panic room door. It was the laugh of someone who'd been waiting for this, who found joy in the violence, who'd been playing civilized when his true nature demanded blood.
He let the soldier hit him again, then caught the third punch, twisting the arm with enough force that I heard the bone break from here. The soldier's scream cut off when Alexei's elbow connected with his temple. He dropped, unconscious or dead, and Alexei stepped over him without checking which.
My finger had moved to the gun's safety without conscious thought. If someone got past him, if they came for me, I'd empty this entire magazine into them. Not because I had to, but because they'd hurt him. Made him bleed. Threatened what was ours.
Another soldier appeared from the hallway—he'd been hiding, waiting for an opening. His rifle was already raised, finger on the trigger, and for one horrible second I thought I was about to watch Alexei die on monitor nine.
But Dmitry came through the penthouse door like a freight train, tackling the soldier before he could fire. They rolled across the floor in a tangle of limbs and profanity—Russian and English mixed together in creative combinations. Dmitry came up on top, fists falling like hammers, continuing long after the soldier stopped moving.
"Enough," Alexei said, pulling his brother off. "He's done."
"He almost shot you," Dmitry snarled, but let himself be pulled away.
