Page 33 of The Russian's Innocent Prey
“You don’t have to figure it out all at once.” Trev’s voice was gentle now, the way it used to be when we were kids and I’d skinned my knee or had a bad dream. “Just come see her. Let her see that you’re alive, that you’re okay.”
“I’m not okay.” The words slipped out before I could stop them. “I haven’t been okay since the day I thought I lost you.”
The room fell silent again. Outside, Chicago hummed with life and death and everything in between. Inside, two brothers stood in the ruins of their shared past, trying to figure out how to build something new from the ashes.
Finally, Trev moved toward the door. But before he left, he turned back one last time.
“You didn’t get the signal because you made peace without me,” he said quietly. “But I never made peace without you.”
And then he was gone, leaving me alone with my ghosts and my guilt and the growing certainty that everything I thought I knew about my life was about to change.
I slumped into my chair, the leather creaking under my weight. My hands were shaking inside my gloves. The fire symbol pendant felt heavy against my chest, a tangible reminder of the boy I used to be before the world taught me how to be a killer.
Together, we are fire.
The words echoed in my head as I reached for the locked drawer where I’d hidden the Kozak files. Because if Trev was right, if Petro was still out there planning his revenge, then I was going to need all the fire I could get.
And maybe, just maybe, I was going to need my brother.
Chapter 10 – Anya
I stared at the quarterly financial reports scattered across my desk, numbers blurring together like watercolors in rain. Milo’s voice still echoed in my head from our meeting an hour ago—profit margins, production costs, retail projections—but my mind refused to process any of it. Instead, it kept drifting back to this morning, to the way Lev had looked at me when I’d mentioned Milo’s name.
That dark, possessive glare should have infuriated me. Should have triggered every alarm bell I’d carefully constructed over the years about controlling men who thought they owned everything they touched. I’d watched my friends suffer through relationships with men who monitored their every move, questioned their every decision, turned love into a cage.
But when Lev’s jaw had tightened at the sound of another man’s name on my lips, when his steel-gray eyes had gone molten with something primal and claiming, my traitorous heart had done a little flip instead of recoiling in disgust.
What the hell was wrong with me?
I closed my eyes and let myself remember the moment after Milo had called during our heated exchange this morning. Lev’s entire body had gone rigid, his voice dropping to that lethal whisper he used when he was about to break someone’s bones.
“Milo?” he’d asked, my name for my business partner sounding like a curse on his tongue.
I’d rushed to explain, words tumbling over each other. “He’s my business partner. We’re reviewing the quarterly reports today. He’s married to my best friend Irene. He’s not—there’s nothing—”
And Lev had simply nodded. That was it. No interrogation, no demands for proof, no insistence that I cut ties with any man who wasn’t him. Just a single nod of acceptance,though I’d caught the ghost of a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth before he’d hidden it behind that impenetrable mask he wore.
That should have been a red flag too—how easily he’d accepted my explanation, how quickly that possessive fire had banked into something almost…pleased. Like he’d enjoyed seeing me flustered, enjoyed knowing that his jealousy affected me.
But instead of running, I’d found myself leaning into it. Craving more of that intensity, that focus, that feeling of being the center of someone’s universe, even if that someone was carved from shadows and violence.
God, I was losing my mind.
The sound of careful footsteps pulled me back to the present. I looked up to see Sasha entering my office, her left shoulder hunched protectively, face pale but chin set with determination. The white bandage peeking out from beneath her cream sweater was a stark reminder of yesterday’s attack, of how close I’d come to losing her.
I shot to my feet, papers fluttering to the floor. “Why on earth are you here? You should be home resting, not—”
Sasha waved me off with a half-smile that didn’t quite hide the pain in her icy blue eyes. She settled carefully into the chair across from my desk, moving like every bone in her body ached. “Anya Antonov can’t function without Sasha Drexel.”
I opened my mouth to protest, to insist that I was perfectly capable of managing on my own, that her health was more important than any work crisis. But the words died on my tongue because we both knew it was true. Today had been the first day I’d worked without hitting walls every five minutes, without second-guessing every decision, without feeling like I was drowning in responsibilities that used to feel manageable.
“You’re an idiot,” I said instead, but my voice was soft with affection. “A stubborn, reckless idiot.”
“Takes one to know one.” Sasha’s smile became more genuine. “Besides, someone needs to make sure you don’t accidentally bankrupt us while you’re distracted by your new husband.”
Heat flooded my cheeks. “I’m not distracted.”
“Right. And I wasn’t shot yesterday.” She pulled out her tablet with her good arm. “Now, can we please review these vendor contracts? Because three suppliers are threatening to pull out if we don’t respond by tomorrow.”
