Page 52 of The Russian's Innocent Prey
Chapter 17 – Lev
I’m on my way back to Chicago when the memories hit—sharp, relentless, dragging me back to the day I got the lead about Petro. The day that should have been the beginning of the end.
My office three days ago. Rain smearing the windows like tears the city couldn’t shed. The room reeked of gun oil, coffee gone cold hours ago, and the leather chairs that hadn’t been properly sat in for days. Drew leaned against the far wall, reading updates off his tablet in that monotone voice he used when the news was shit. Maxim paced near the window, barking orders into his phone—something about Rafael’s expansion into the docks.
The noise grated against my skull. Everything had been grating lately. Anya’s worried glances when she thought I wasn’t looking. The way she’d wake up in the middle of the night, reaching for my side of the bed like she was checking to make sure I was still breathing. The questions she never asked but that hung in the air between us: When will this end? When can we be normal?
Normal. What a fucking joke. Men like me didn’t get normal. We got stolen moments between wars.
“I’m leaving at dawn.” My voice cut through the chaos, loud enough to get both their attention.
Maxim ended his call mid-sentence, turning to face me. “For where?”
Drew looked up from his tablet, eyebrows raised. They knew that tone. It was the same one I’d used before every suicide mission I’d ever volunteered for.
I cleared my throat and laid it out plain. “Small town past the Chicago border. Kozak’s rumored farm under a dead man’sname. Cash shipments have been tracked there. Maybe I catch Petro, maybe I just get answers from whoever’s left.”
What I didn’t tell them was that I knew it felt wrong. Too easy. Too convenient. But I was desperate, and desperate men make stupid choices.
Drew’s fingers had already started flying over his keyboard. “Give me ten minutes. I’ll have satellite images, property records, everything.”
“No.” I held up a hand. “This one’s mine.”
“Lev—” Maxim started.
“I said no.” The finality in my voice killed whatever argument he’d been about to make. “Petro Kozak is my burden. You two have business to run.”
I should have listened to the voice in my head screaming that it was a trap. Should have waited for backup, for better intel, for something other than blind rage to guide my decisions. But all I could think about was Anya’s face when she asked me when it would be safe enough for us to have a real life together.
Soon, I’d told her. Soon.
Turned out “soon” was a luxury men like me couldn’t afford.
***
The edge of a deserted, winding road outside Chicago. Pine wilderness thick on both sides, the kind of place where screams die before they reach civilization. I’d been driving for two hours, following coordinates that led to nothing but empty highway and the growing certainty that I’d been played.
My world spun sideways without warning.
I still don’t know what hit first—the explosion that flipped my car or the realization that I’d walked straight into Petro’s trap like some amateur fresh out of basic training. One moment, I was cursing myself for being a fool, the next, I was tasting metal and blood, my vision fracturing as the SUV rolled once, twice,three times before slamming into a tree with the kind of sound metal makes when it gives up trying to be strong.
My leg was pinned under twisted steel, chest barely moving under the weight of the collapsed roof. Each breath felt like swallowing glass. Warm liquid—blood, had to be blood—trickled down my temple and into my mouth.
Then voices. Footsteps on gravel. Male, steady, cold.
“He dead?” The accent was thick, Ukrainian, the kind that turned every word into a weapon.
“Look at that wreck. Nothing could survive that.”
A laugh, low and cruel. “Put a bullet in his head to be sure. Boss wants confirmation.”
“Why waste the bullet? He’s gonna burn anyway.”
I held my breath. Played corpse among the metal and fire. If the explosion hadn’t taken me, their bullets would. If they didn’t pull the trigger, the blood loss would finish the job. The math was simple, brutal, final.
This was it. No miracle coming. No last-second rescue. No dramatic return to Anya’s arms.
I was going to die in a ditch forty miles from the woman I loved, and she’d spend the rest of her life wondering what happened to me.
