Page 36 of Bratva's Vow
Arkady leaned against the hood of a matte black SUV, surrounded by three of his men who stood with the bored, dangerous ease of people used to violence.
“Maxim.” He pushed off the car and extended a hand. “You look… expensive.”
Like a supervillain. Wren’s description. My lips twitched, and I had to fight back my smile.
“I do my best.” I clasped his hand in a firm grip. “No sense dying in cheap shoes.”
He barked a laugh. “That’s fair. I take it business is good, then?”
“Business is always good as long as you’re above ground and still breathing.”
A luxury to men like us.
“You have news about the crypto wallets?” Arkady asked as we walked side by side across the lot, away from the cars and the bodyguards.
“You’ll have it by the weekend,” I said. “The wallets are secure. My guys are transferring the goods onto new hardware to be sure. Clean, untraceable.”
“Good,” he said, hands in his coat pockets. “I’ve waited long enough.”
I didn’t rise to the bait. Arkady liked to poke. He liked to rattle the bars to see if the lion inside would bite.
“You’ll get what’s yours. You always do.”
He hummed in approval, but his eyes—flat, wolfish—didn’t soften. “Heard you’ve had a bit of trouble lately. With the chief of police.”
I didn’t react. Didn’t blink. “I’m dealing with it.”
“Sure you are. But you know how rumors spread. Especially when things go… sideways.”
“I’ve got it under control.”
“Good, because if you need help, I’m always willing to offer some of my men.”
“That’s quite generous of you, Arkady, but I’m good.”
“Don’t mention it. Men like us need to have each other’s backs.”
I stopped walking. So did he. The wind hissed through the unfinished steel framework above us, making it groan like the bones of something ancient.
He turned to face me fully. “Heard something else too.”
“Seems like you’ve been hearing a lot lately.”
“Well, this one’s quite interesting.” His voice was casual. “Heard you’ve got a boy toy living with you now.”
Inside, my blood turned to ice. Nothing showed on my face. I’d trained too long for that. But his words detonated behind my ribs like a timed charge. My pulse thudded hard, as if my heart was deciding whether to stop or explode. I’d spent years mastering silence, control, the art of revealing nothing, but that nameless flicker of Wren on Arkady’s lips scraped against every nerve.
This was the one thing I couldn’t afford.
The one soft thing I had no armor for.
Arkady smirked. “Imagine my surprise when Boris sent me a message about that boy. Then poof. Radio silence. Both he and his brother disappeared. Didn’t take me long to put two and two together.”
The air between us dropped ten degrees.
“I thought it was odd at first. Why you’d throw extra security on a civilian. Maxim Morozov, merciless. Cares about nothing else but power. Until this boy. So I watched, and sure enough, the script that followed was intriguing.”
My jaw flexed.
