Page 37 of Claimed By the Bratva Brothers

The agent gives me a broad, overly confident smile. “Knock yourself out. They’ll tell you the same thing they told you the last time we paid you a visit. Suck it up, buttercup.”

“Your audacity is spectacular,” I reply, my fists itching to wipe the smirk off his face.

Ivan steps in. Shit. I didn’t even see him coming. I don’t like the darkness in his eyes. I know it all too well. It’s muted rage that is about to get really, painfully loud. The agent, however, doesn’t immediately sense the threat. It will be his undoing, and I’m not sure I can help him.

“This is harassment,” Ivan says.

“We have a warrant. Back the fuck away and let my people do their job,” the agent replies.

I wonder if he’s one of Smith’s lackeys or if his arrogance just comes with the windbreaker and the badge. But Ivan doesn’t care. He’s got close to a foot on the guy and he didn’t join me down here to play nice with the Feds.

“You do your job and whatever the fuck else you need to do, but our employees deserve to be treated with respect,” Ivan says, then nods to the side where two agents are shoving a few of our drivers into a corner, tossing and turning everything over in their path. “It doesn’t look like they’re searching for anything. It looks more like shit-stirring and destruction of private property.”

“You need to mind your own business and let my people do their job,” the agent says, one hand already on his holstered weapon.

Ivan’s eyes grow wide with amusement and not the good kind. “Are you seriously threatening to shoot me?”

“Ivan, come on.” I try to get in between them, but my brother has reached his breaking point. Even I can’t stop him. “Ivan…”

“If I feel like my life is in danger, I will shoot you,” the agent says. But it’s that constant smile of his that has the hairs on the back of my neck stiffening with irritation. Ivan is right to call him out, I’m just not sure about his choice of attitude. “Back away—now.”

One of our drivers cries out in pain when an agent twists his arm behind his back. A skirmish erupts a few yards to our right, and Ivan immediately jumps in to put an end to it. The agent watches him, fingers nimbly grasping his gun, ready and almost eager to unholster it.

“Ivan!” I call out, but it’s too late.

My brother throws the first punch, resulting in one agent falling backward, completely disconnected from reality. Fuck. The other two Feds try to tackle Ivan, but he’s not an easy man to take down. He swings left and right, dodging punches and delivering one blow after another, until a taser hits him in the back.

“Ivan!” I shout again and rush to help him, but I’m pulled back by more windbreakers.

“Stand back!”

“Don’t move,” one of them says to my brother.

“How the fuck is he going to move, you’re electrocuting him!” I snarl, struggling to get free. Granted, I could throw some punches of my own and break a couple of jaws, but the situation is fucked up enough as it is. I can’t risk making it worse. “Somebody help him!”

Ivan is on the ground, twitching, until the handler of the taser finally turns the power off. Two of his colleagues get on top of my brother and cuff his hands behind his back. This just went from bad to worse in the span of minutes.

“Don’t move!” the goon on top of my brother shouts.

“You people are incredible,” I gasp, barely able to believe my own eyes.

I can almost feel my brother’s pain coursing through my body. This is one of those moments where I wish the old Bratva rules could be applied. The Feds would’ve never dared to walk in and do something like this. They would’ve had a smidge of common sense, at least, knowing that we could easily find out where they lived, where their kids went to school…

But it’s not within our moral code to function according to the traditional values of our organization anymore, which is both a blessing and a curse. In this situation, it feels more like the latter than the former.

“Alright, I got him.”

“Ivan don’t say a word. Don’t fight them. I’ll get you out quickly, I promise.”

“Good luck with that,” one of the agents says with an irritating smirk. “You’ll have to wait until he’s transferred to jail and arraigned. Quickly doesn’t apply here.”

It’s at this point that Ivan completely freezes, looking up at me with a mixture of dismay and concern. We’ve had our occasional brushes with the law over the years, but nothing that needed more than a night’s worth in county jail. My brother can’t spend an hour in such a space without losing a bit of himself in the process.

Ivan is a hard man, riddled with the kind of darkness that he’s had to become particularly adept at controlling. Confinement brings out the worst in him, his composure and self-control greatly tested.

If I don’t get him out quickly, I fear he’ll unleash his anger and distress on whoever’s unlucky enough to share a cell with him. My hand is already reaching into my pocket and pulling out my phone as I watch Ivan get dragged out of the loading bay in a most unceremonious fashion. To make matters worse, a handful of reporters have gathered outside, snapping photos, asking stupid questions, filming Ivan as he’s escorted to one of the FBI’s black vans.

This will hit the news within the hour.

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