Page 28 of The Russian's Innocent Prey
My phone buzzed against the desk, Trev’s name appearing on the screen like a ghost from a past I wasn’t ready to confront. I let it go to voicemail, then watched as it immediately started ringing again. And again.
On the fourth call, I finally answered.
“What?” The word came out harsher than intended, edged with the frustration of being interrupted in the middle of piecing together a puzzle that might determine whether I lived or died.
“Jesus Christ, Lev. I’ve been trying to reach you for hours.” Trev’s voice carried traces of an Australian accent that made him sound like a stranger. “We need to talk.”
“No, we don’t.” I was already reaching to end the call when his next words stopped me cold.
“It’s about the Kozaks. About why Dad really sent us away.”
I stared at the phone screen, my finger hovering over the disconnect button. Part of me wanted to hang up, to deal with this crisis the way I dealt with everything else—alone, methodically, without the complication of family emotions I didn’t know how to process.
But Trev was a cop. Had been working cases for years without my father’s knowledge, had access to intelligence networks that might fill in gaps I couldn’t bridge on my own. And if the Kozaks were coming for both of us, I needed toknow everything he knew about why we’d been marked for death before we were even old enough to understand what that meant.
I ended the call anyway. Not because I didn’t need the information, but because I wasn’t ready to have that conversation. Not with a brother I’d spent twenty-seven years believing was dead, not when I was already drowning in revelations that kept reshaping everything I thought I knew about my life.
The phone buzzed with a text message:How long are you planning to ignore me?
I stared at the words, feeling something twist in my chest that might have been guilt or grief or simple exhaustion. Trev was trying to reach out, trying to bridge a gap that felt wider than the years between us, and I was shutting him down because processing his resurrection on top of everything else felt impossible.
Behind me, I could hear Casandra and Drew arguing about something trivial—coffee placement or filing systems or whatever mundane crisis had captured their attention this morning. The sound pulled me out of my intense focus, and I realized with a start that pale morning light was filtering through the office windows.
I’d been working all night, lost in surveillance footage and family trees and the kind of deep research that made time disappear. My eyes burned with exhaustion, my shoulders ached from hours of hunching over computer screens, and my mouth tasted like stale coffee and regret.
Standing up was an exercise in controlled movement, my body protesting the sudden change in position. I shoved my phone into my back pocket without responding to Trev’s message, then quickly saved my work and locked the most sensitive files in my desk drawer. The kind of information I’duncovered couldn’t be left lying around where anyone might stumble across it.
The Kozaks were planning something bigger than just my father’s death. The surveillance, the theatrical execution, the biblical messaging—it all pointed to a campaign rather than a single strike. They wanted to destroy the Antonov name completely, to wipe out every trace of the family that had wronged them.
Which meant Anya was in more danger than any of us had realized. She wasn’t just collateral damage in a business dispute—she was a target in a blood feud that stretched back decades. The woman who’d agreed to marry me to stay safe had actually painted an even bigger target on her back, because now she was family in the eyes of people who saw family as fair game.
The irony would have been funny if it weren't potentially fatal.
I needed coffee, a shower, and at least a few hours of sleep before I could think clearly about next steps. But first, I needed to face Anya again, to pretend that everything between us was business as usual when the truth was that I’d spent the night drowning in information that made our forced marriage feel less like protection and more like a death sentence.
***
The elevator ride back up to my penthouse felt longer than it should have, each floor marker counting down to a confrontation I wasn’t prepared for. Anya was probably awake by now, probably pacing around my apartment like a caged animal, probably working up the kind of righteous anger that would make the next few hours unbearable.
Good. Let her be angry. Angry was easier to handle than hurt, and hurt was easier to handle than whatever complicated emotion had been flickering in her eyes when I’d walked out on her last night.
I could do angry. I’d been doing angry for most of my adult life.
What I couldn’t do was soft looks and vulnerable admissions and the kind of emotional intimacy that made me want to be someone better than the man violence had shaped me into. Anya deserved better than that, deserved someone who could love her without destroying everything he touched.
But she was mine now, at least on paper. And I was good at protecting what was mine, even if I was shit at everything else that came with caring about someone.
The penthouse was dark and quiet when I let myself in, the city lights filtering through floor-to-ceiling windows, casting long shadows across the space. It was nearly 3 a.m.—I’d been working longer than I’d realized, lost in surveillance footage and family trees and the kind of deep research that made time disappear.
I moved through the apartment quietly, my footsteps muffled by expensive carpet as I made my way deeper inside. I could hear the faint sound of movement from the bedroom—restless sleep, probably. Anya, trapped in a life that had been completely upended by forces beyond her control.
But he had information I needed. About the Kozaks, about why our father had chosen to fake their deaths instead of simply relocating them. About what secrets were buried so deep that people were willing to kill for them decades later.
I typed out a response:Tonight. My office. Come alone.
Then I deleted it without sending, because I wasn’t ready for that conversation. Wasn’t ready to admit that the brother I’d mourned might be the key to keeping the woman I was failing to protect alive.
I locked my phone and shoved it back into my pocket. I should head to one of the guest rooms, let her sleep undisturbed.But exhaustion was pulling at me, and some primitive part of my brain insisted on being close enough to protect what was mine.
