Page 46 of Bratva's Vow
My heart shot into my throat as I felt how close we were to the edge. While there was a barrier, it was low enough for Bradley to fling both of us over.
“Bradley, what the fuck are you doing?” I gasped, panic twisting in my chest.
“Shut up, Wren.” He squeezed harder, and I winced.
Maxim’s entire body went rigid, but he stopped moving. “Let him go, Bradley. He has nothing to do with this.”
Bradley’s laugh was bitter, unhinged. “Doesn’t he? Because he’s the only way I’ll get off this rooftop alive, isn’t he?”
“I said let him go,” Maxim repeated, voice like ice cracking in winter. Deadly. Controlled. But underneath his chilling demeanor, he was unraveling. His chest rose and fell rapidly, and his fingers twitched.
This is all my fault.
“I will… if you admit it to him,” Bradley snarled. “Tell him the truth. Tell him what you are, or he falls.”
I stared at Maxim, my throat tight. My heart screamed “tell me it’s a lie.” I needed him to say it. To tell me Bradley was mistaken. That none of this was real.
But Maxim didn’t say anything.
He stared back at me… and didn’t deny it.
And that silence told me everything.
CHAPTER TWELVE
MAXIM
When I saw Wren standing in Bradley’s grip, so close to the edge of the rooftop, everything inside me went silent.
Not calm.
Not focused.
Silent in that horrifying way, like the seconds before a bomb goes off. Bradley had his hand clamped tight around Wren’s neck, his face twisted into something manic, something reckless. And Wren—Jesus—Wren looked terrified. His face was pale, eyes wide, body stiff as Bradley dragged him closer to the edge of the fucking roof.
That was all it took. Every ounce of control I’d been gripping all day snapped.
“Bradley,” I said, my voice low and sharp, but even to my own ears, it cracked with barely restrained panic. “Let. Him. Go.”
“Don’t fucking come closer,” Bradley barked back, tightening his grip. Wren flinched, his eyes cutting toward me,wide with disbelief and terror. That gutted me more than anything else in this fucked up situation. “One more step and I swear to god, I’ll take us both over.”
My throat dried. I couldn’t reach for my gun.
Couldn’t risk it.
If I missed?—
If I so much as grazed Wren?—
I wouldn’t survive it.
Not because Bradley would kill me.
Because I wouldn’t want to keep living if Wren wasn’t breathing.
I raised my hands, forcing my tone low and even, to negotiate with a dying man. Someone with nothing to lose. “Bradley, listen to me. You don’t want to do this. It’s not Wren who you’re after. You’ve made your point. Let him go, and we can talk.”
Bradley’s laugh was cracked and sharp as glass. “Talk? Fuck talking to me, Maxim. Tell him the truth.”
