Page 3 of The Russian's Revenge Bride
“This changes everything,” Rafael said once I’d finished patching him up. “Someone knew about tonight. Someone with access to details.”
“I know.” The rage was still there, burning cold in my chest like liquid nitrogen. “I’ll find them.”
“And when you do?”
“They’ll beg for death long before I give it to them.”
I walked to the window and stared out at the Prague skyline, all gothic spires and Soviet brutality reaching toward a sky that didn’t give a shit about any of us. The city was full of secrets, but mine were darker than most.
My photographic memory was already working, cataloguing faces and names and connections. Everyone who knew about tonight. Everyone who had access to the details. The list was short, but it was enough to start with.
Seven dead bodies in a warehouse. One deal blown to hell. Someone had tried to bury us tonight, and they’d nearly succeeded. Rafael was alive by inches, and I was breathing out of pure fucking spite.
But we were alive, and they were dead. That was what mattered.
I pulled out my phone and started making calls. First to our cleanup crew, efficient bastards who would make seven bodies disappear like they’d never existed. Then, to our Prague contacts, spreading the word that the Croatian pipeline was compromised and needed to be cauterized.
“What’s the plan?” Rafael asked from the couch, already looking better despite the hole in his gut.
“We find who set us up. We make them suffer. Then we rebuild the operation from the ground up.”
“And if they’re family?”
I turned from the window and met his eyes, letting him see the ice that had settled in my soul years ago. “Family bleeds just like everyone else.”
The truth was, trust was a luxury I couldn’t afford. Not anymore. Not after watching good men die because someone decided thirty pieces of silver were worth more than brotherhood. The Bratva demanded absolute loyalty, and betrayal was a sin that could only be washed clean with blood.
I walked back to Rafael and sat down across from him, my mind already working on the problem. Seven shooters, professional grade, positioned with insider knowledge. Someone had fed them everything: timing, location, personnel. Someone close enough to know our business.
“The Croatian contact,” I said. “He ever show?”
“Never fucking appeared.” Rafael winced as he shifted position. “Which means either he’s dead or he’s the one who sold us out.”
“Or both.” I stood up and started pacing, my mind racing through possibilities. “Someone uses him to set the meet, then kills him to cover the trail.”
“Smart.”
“Too fucking smart. This wasn’t street-level intelligence. This was someone who knows how we operate, how we think, how we plan.”
My face throbbed where something had caught me during the firefight, probably shrapnel or concrete chips. I touched the spot below my right eye, and my fingers came away bloody. Fresh scar to add to the collection.
I wouldn’t make the same mistake again.
My parents’ faces flashed through my mind, the way they’d looked in their final moments. The guilt was always there, a constant companion that whispered about failure andinadequacy. I should have protected them. Should have seen the attack coming. Should have done more, been faster, been better.
But I couldn’t save the dead. I could only make sure the living paid for their crimes.
The warehouse job was supposed to be routine. Get in, make the trade, get out clean. Instead, it had become a bloodbath that painted a clear picture of how deep the rot had spread in our organization. Someone close to us, someone trusted, had decided we were expendable.
They were wrong.
“Six years,” I said, more to myself than to Rafael.
“What?”
“Give me six years. I’ll find who did this. I’ll make them pay for every drop of blood spilled tonight. And I’ll make sure nothing like this ever happens again.”
Rafael smiled, that cold expression that had made him one of the most feared men in the Russian underworld. “Six years is a long time to hold a grudge.”
