Page 44 of The Russian's Innocent Prey
“Try leaving,” I growled, nipping at the sensitive spot where her neck met her shoulder. “I’ll burn this whole city down just to drag you back.”
She laughed again, breathless now, as I claimed her mouth in a kiss that was slow and claiming and endless. Every touch was a reminder of what we’d confessed to each other in the darkness, every breath a promise of what this meant.
Mine. She was finally, completely mine.
***
The memory of her laughter followed me into the office like a ghost, warming something in my chest that I’d thought was permanently frozen. For the first time in twenty-seven years, I felt like I might actually have something worth protecting beyond mere survival.
My phone buzzed against the desk. ‘Mom’s number flashed on the screen.
“Trev’s been discharged,” she said without preamble. “He’s insisting on coming to see you, though I told him he should rest.”
“Let him come. We have work to do.”
I ended the call and was reaching for the Kozak files when movement in my peripheral vision made me look up. My blood turned to ice when I saw who was sitting in the chair across from my desk, like he owned the place.
Maxim.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” I snarled, my hand moving instinctively toward the gun holstered beneath my jacket.
He shrugged with that infuriating calm he’d perfected over the years. “Closing the deal. Figured I’d come collect my best friend and see how badly you’ve fucked up my sister’s life.”
Before I could respond—before I could tell him exactly where he could shove his accusations—his expression shifted. Stiffened. The casual mask slipped away, replaced by the cold calculation I recognized from a hundred battlefields.
I turned to see what had caught his attention and felt my stomach drop.
Trev was standing in the doorway, blue eyes taking in the scene with professional assessment. The family resemblance was unmistakable, even with his arm in a sling. Same height, same build, same dangerous stillness that marked us both as predators.
My hands went up automatically. “I can explain.”
And then I laid it all out. Twenty-seven years of lies and grief and survival, condensed into brutal honesty that left all of us bleeding. The fire that wasn’t supposed to leave survivors. The fake funeral I’d attended while my brother grew up onanother continent. The father who’d sacrificed his family to keep his sons alive.
When I finished, the silence stretched between us like a chasm.
Finally, Maxim spoke. His voice was quiet, thoughtful. “So you really saw me as a brother all these years…and didn’t tell me?”
Of all the reactions I’d expected—rage, betrayal, violence—that wasn’t one of them. I stared at him, nostrils flaring. “Out of everything I just told you, that’s what you picked up on?”
A laugh slipped out of me, harsh and broken. The tension in the room cracked like ice on a frozen lake.
Maxim shrugged again, but there was something softer in his expression now. “Just saying. You’re a cold, emotionally constipated bastard, but you’re my cold, emotionally constipated bastard. Would’ve been nice to know I wasn’t the only one who gave a shit.”
Before I could process that admission, Trev reached into his jacket pocket. “I’ve been doing some digging since I found out about Dad,” he said, placing a photograph on my desk. “This showed up in an old case file from three years ago. Unsolved assassination in Melbourne—victim was a Ukrainian expatriate with ties to organized crime.”
The photo was grainy, pulled from security footage, but clear enough to make out the figure. A young woman in black, her face covered by a simple mask that revealed only her eyes—pale gray with steel blue specks that seemed to glow even in the poor quality image.
“Those eyes,” I said quietly, something cold settling in my chest.
“Same woman who attacked me yesterday,” Trev confirmed. “Same ritual too—witnesses said she whisperedsomething that sounded like a prayer before she fired. Security footage caught her making the sign of the cross.”
I pulled up the button camera footage I’d retrieved from Dad’s belongings and fast-forwarded to the assassination. When I paused on the clearest shot of the killer’s face, Trev leaned forward.
“That’s her. Same eyes, same build, same movement patterns.”
“Professional,” Maxim observed, studying both images. “Trained from childhood, if I had to guess. The way she moves, the precision—this isn’t street talent.”
I stared at those haunting eyes, trying to place why they seemed so familiar.
