Page 21 of The Russian's Innocent Prey
I couldn’t speak. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t process the reality that my twin brother had known I was alive all this time while I’d spent nearly three decades believing I’d failed to save him. That our father had let me carry that guilt, that grief, for reasons I still didn’t understand.
“Lev? Are you there?”
I took in a deep breath, careful not to show the gut-wrenching anxiety I felt. “Things are dangerous. There’s a reason Dad kept us separated all this time.”
“Fuck danger. He’s dead. Whatever threat he was protecting us from killed him anyway. Mom and I are flying in for the funeral. We land this afternoon.”
I ended the call.
My hands were shaking as I set the phone on the nightstand, the tremor traveling up my arms and settling somewhere deep in my chest where it felt like my ribcage was coming apart. Trev was alive. Had been alive this whole time while I’d carried the weight of his death like a stone in my heart.
She didn’t know I was there, standing just outside the door, listening to her talk to Maxim. His name had barely left her lips before I knew what the call was about. Maxim never reached out unless something was burning. And lately, everything was.
The city hadn’t stopped bleeding since my father hit the ground. His death tore through the streets like shrapnel—every deal, every alliance, every man who once called him boss now looking for a way to crawl higher over the bodies. The balance he’d built was gone, and the vultures were circling. Wars didn’t just brew in our world—they boiled fast.
When I finally stepped into the doorway, she turned, eyes still glassy from the call. The phone was trembling in her hand, like she was holding a live wire. I didn’t need to ask, but I did anyway. “Maxim?”
She nodded. Didn’t say a word.
“He wants you gone,” I said. It wasn’t a guess. Maxim always moved fast when the streets turned ugly, clearing out the people he thought could get caught in the crossfire. If he’d called her, it meant things were already worse than anyone was admitting.
“He thinks I’m in danger,” she said quietly, clutching the sheet tighter around herself. “Because of your father.”
I felt something twist in my chest at the mention of him—grief, maybe, or rage. Hard to tell the difference these days. I shut it down before it could show. “You probably are.”
The words came out colder than I meant them to, and I saw the flash of anger in her eyes. I couldn’t blame her. She wanted more—reassurance, something human—but I didn’t have it in me to give. Not when I couldn’t even promise myself I’d make it out of this alive.
When she asked if that was all I had to say, I stepped closer, trying to keep my voice steady. “ You want me to what? Fight for you? Beg you to stay? Tell you that last night changed everything?”
She didn’t answer. I could see the war happening behind her eyes—wanting to fight me, wanting to stay. I almost reached for her. Almost.
But I’d learned a long time ago thatalmostcould get you killed.
But then she opened her mouth and destroyed what was left of my world.
“Last night was a mistake,”
The words hit me like a physical blow, each syllable driving deeper into wounds that were already hemorrhaging. I went completely still, every muscle in my body locking down as something dark and twisted unfurled in my chest. Not just hurt—though that was there, sharp and vicious and completely unexpected. But rage. Pure, incandescent fury that she could reduce what we’d shared to a mistake.
A mistake. Like it had meant nothing. LikeIhad meant nothing.
I wanted to grab her, to pin her against the wall and make her take it back. Wanted to remind her of every soundshe’d made, every way she’d clung to me, every whispered plea for more. Wanted to show her exactly what a mistake felt like compared to what we’d actually done.
Instead, I locked it all down. Buried the rage and the hurt and the devastating knowledge that my family had been alive while I’d been dying slowly from their loss. Buried it all under ice and control and the kind of emptiness that had kept me functional for most of my adult life.
“Get dressed.” My voice came out flat, emotionless, carrying none of the storm that was tearing me apart from the inside. “I’ll drive you home.”
She flinched like I’d slapped her, and some small, vicious part of me was glad. If she wanted to call it a mistake, if she wanted to pretend that what happened between us was nothing, then I’d give her nothing. No arguments, no pleas, no desperate attempts to change her mind.
Just the cold, clinical distance she was clearly looking for.
I didn’t watch her get dressed, didn’t trust myself not to do something that would shatter the fragile control I was barely maintaining. Instead, I stared out the window at a city that looked gray and hostile in the morning light, counting seconds until I could get her out of my space and deal with the wreckage of everything else.
The drive to her mansion passed in suffocating silence. Every few blocks, I could feel her looking at me, could sense her wanting to say something, but I kept my eyes on the road and my jaw clenched tight enough to crack teeth. What was there to say? She’d made her position clear. Last night was a mistake.Iwas a mistake.
When I pulled into her driveway, I kept the engine running. Message delivered without words: this wasn’t a conversation, it was a drop-off.
She reached for the door handle, then stopped. “Lev—”
