Page 37 of Bratva's Vow
“You treat him like gold. Like he’s irreplaceable. He’s got more eyes on him than you do. Makes a man curious what’s so special about him.”
I didn’t realize I’d moved until my hand was around his throat.
Arkady didn’t flinch. His men didn’t step in. Both his and mine were at a standoff.
“Do you want to fuck with me?” I growled, my face inches from his. “Do you think that’s a smart idea?”
He held my gaze, eyes glinting with something sharp and dangerous. But he didn’t reach for his weapon.
“Relax, Morozov, I don’t want to hurt the boy. Though you just confirmed everything I suspected. Believe me, I have no interest in where you get your dick wet. As long as you keep priorities in order. Can’t have any more of that airport fuckup to inconvenience me.”
My hand stayed on his throat a second longer. Then I let go and stepped back, adjusting my blazer like nothing had happened.
“If I were you, Arkady, I’d forget you ever said anything tonight that wasn’t about the crypto wallets. Sometimes the deadliest thing you can do is to know too much.”
We stood in tense silence for a moment longer. Then he offered a quick nod and turned, signaling to his men. “I look forward to what’s mine on Saturday, Morozov. A word of caution, though. Not everyone in our world is as accepting as I am. You don’t flaunt the thing you’d kill for unless you’re ready to kill for it every day.”
“I’ve buried for far less.” I let the warning drift in the air as Arkady walked back to his car and got in.
I waited until he was gone, the tail lights of his car fading into the distance, before I let the tremor ripple through my body. A cold knot formed in my stomach.
I felt sick.
“Everything okay?” Sergei said.
“Arkady’s up to something.”
Sergei frowned, staring after Arkady’s entourage. “What do you want to do about it? Have them followed?”
“Yes. And take out the men he brought with him tonight. All of them.”
Sergei hesitated. “You sure? Arkady’s meant to be an ally.”
“He stopped being that the moment he mentioned Wren.”
He’d crossed a line. Not carelessly—deliberately. Testing me. Provoking me. If this was the game he wanted to play, I would play it well.
“I want him to understand the price of talking out of turn. Of knowing too much. I want him to watch his men die and know that could’ve been him. Thatshould’vebeen him, but I showed him mercy.”
From the look on Sergei’s face, he didn’t agree with me, but he knew by now Wren meant too much to me for me to be bothered by what he thought. He spoke into his comm unit, and one of the cars that had followed us drove away. I climbed into the back seat of the car, and Sergei slammed the door shut. I clenched and unclenched my fist.
“Home?” Sergei asked.
“Yes.”
The meeting with Arkady hadn’t lasted long, but our location was forty-five minutes from my house. A long enough drive for me to convince Wren I’d had a quick business dinner, then returned home to spend the evening with him.
Arkady.
That son of a bitch had me under surveillance. I had to teach him a lesson.
When I walked through the front door of the house almost an hour later, it was dark. Quiet. Except for the lowhum of the television. I followed the sound into the living room, where Wren lay fast asleep on the couch, a half-eaten large pepperoni pizza on the coffee table. My stomach tightened. Had he disobeyed me and called for delivery?
I picked up his new phone from the floor next to the couch. I’d deliberately dropped his older one so he would have no more excuse to not use the more updated version. What Wren didn’t know was that I’d also programmed my fingerprint to unlock the device.
A quick scan of his phone set my mind at ease. He hadn’t ordered in, but he’d called Nik. Just like I’d told him to do. As long as he kept following my instructions, I could keep him safe from men like Arkady, couldn’t I?
I brushed my finger across his smooth cheek, then leaned forward and pressed a kiss to his forehead.
