Page 3 of Captured By the Masked BRATVA
My knees nearly give way. “Artem,” I whisper.
He doesn’t confirm it, but he doesn’t deny it either. The truth hangs between us like a storm about to break.
I should be terrified. I should beg or run. Instead, a strange calm settles over me. Perhaps this is what I’ve been waiting for. The reckoning. The part of me that has carried guilt for six months finally exhales.
“I thought you’d come sooner,” I say quietly.
His eyes narrow, confusion flickering through the fury. “You knew I would?”
“People always return to what haunts them.”
He takes a step closer, and the distance between us collapses. I can feel the warmth of him, the danger, the grief. I wonder if this is what it feels like to be seen just before dying.
Somewhere deep inside, an ironic thought surfaces: that I will leave this world the same way I’ve lived in it, without everknowing what it means to be loved. Lev was the only person who ever saw me, and even he kept his distance out of decency. My father kept me locked behind respectability and promises I never made.
Maybe this is easier. To end it here, with someone who once belonged to him.
The silence between us hums until it feels like the room itself is holding its breath.
“Tell me,” he says finally. “Were you there that night?”
It’s an accusation wrapped in disbelief.
I nod once. The movement feels slow and clunky. “Yes.”
“Then you watched my brother die.” His words land like stones.
My throat tightens. “I watched him fall.”
The admission tastes like salt. I can still see it, the blur of motion, the shock of the impact, the terrible stillness that followed. For months I’ve tried to fold the memory away, but it opens easily now, as if it has been waiting for him.
Artem’s jaw hardens. “You let your family say it was self-defence.”
“I let them say whatever they needed to survive.”
He takes a step closer. “Survive?”
I meet his eyes. “You know the world we live in. We’re all monsters to some degree. This way it looked like business gone wrong.” I sigh and shake my head.
He hesitates. It’s the smallest pause, but it’s there. The mask of vengeance flickers, and I see the man behind it. He is exhausted, hollowed out by loss.
“I didn’t know you were there,” he says, quieter now. “You were never mentioned.”
“If it was business, I wouldn’t have been.” The silence stretches again, so I fill it. “I was supposed to be asleep. Lev asked me to come outside with him for air, he was saying something about an argument—” I shake my head, wishing I could remember more details about our last conversation. “We were talking, nothing more, but Lev was so riled up. My brother found us. He thought—” I stop, breath catching. “He thought Lev was hurting me.”
Artem’s eyes close briefly. When he opens them, they’re darker. “So he killed him.”
I nod again. “He didn’t mean to. It happened so fast. One moment they were shouting, then they started throwing punches. The next Lev was falling backwards…” I press my hands together to keep them from shaking. “I didn’t see at first. Then I tried to stop the bleeding. I thought if I could just hold on to him, if I could just keep him awake—”
He looks at me then, really looks, and for the first time I see uncertainty in him.
“Why didn’t you tell anyone?”
“Because I didn’t want my brother to carry it too. He thought he was protecting me. I couldn’t take that from him.”
Artem exhales, a sound between anger and something else. “So you carried it yourself.”
I manage a small, humourless smile. “Someone had to.”
