Page 35 of The Russian's Innocent Prey
But now I tucked one beneath my wrist with steady fingers, the familiar weight both comforting and terrifying.
Next came the small Glock that Maxim had given me on my twenty-first birthday. “Just in case,” he’d said, and I’d rolled my eyes and shoved it in the drawer, never imagining I’d actually need it.
The gun felt heavier than I remembered as I checked the clip, muscle memory guiding my movements. Seven rounds. Enough to make a statement.
“Anya?” Sasha’s voice seemed to come from very far away. “What are you doing?”
I looked up to find her staring at me with wide eyes, face pale with shock. Right. Normal people didn’t keep weapons in their office desks. Normal people didn’t respond to a crisis by arming themselves for war.
But I wasn’t a normal person. I was Maxim Voronov’s sister, raised in the shadows of the Bratva world even as I’d tried to escape it. I was Anya Antonov now, whether I’d wanted that name or not.
And my husband was lying in a hospital bed, possibly dying, while his enemies circled like vultures.
I stood up slowly, shoulders squaring, spine straightening. The fear was still there, clawing at my insides like a living thing. But underneath it was something else. Something cold and sharp and utterly ruthless.
“I’m done being a delicate designer,” I said, my voice steady despite the chaos raging inside me. “I’m done hiding behind other people while they fight my battles.”
Sasha struggled to her feet, wincing as the movement pulled at her injured shoulder. “Anya, you can’t just—”
“Can’t what? Can’t protect what’s mine?” The words slipped out before I could stop them, and I felt something shift inside my chest. A lock clicking open. A truth finally acknowledged.
Mine.
When had I started thinking of Lev as mine?
“Stay here,” I told Sasha, tucking the Glock into the waistband of my skirt where my blazer would hide it. “Lock the doors after I leave. Don’t let anyone in except Eleanor or Drew.”
“Where are you going?”
I paused at the door, hand on the handle. When I looked back at her, I knew my eyes held the same cold fire I’d seen in Maxim’s when someone threatened our family.
“I’m going to the hospital. And if whoever did this to Lev thinks they can use him to get to me….” I smiled, and it felt like broken glass. “They’re about to learn why Maxim Voronov spent so many years teaching his little sister how to fight.”
I walked out of my office and didn’t look back.
The elevator ride to the parking garage felt endless. My reflection in the polished steel doors showed a woman I barely recognized—sharp-edged and dangerous, with ice in her eyes and violence humming beneath her skin. This wasn’t the sunny, optimistic designer who’d built a fashion empire on dreams and determination.
This was someone else entirely. Someone who’d been sleeping beneath the surface all these years, waiting for the right moment to wake up.
As the elevator doors opened and I stepped into the shadowy garage, one thought echoed in my head with crystal clarity:
I wasn’t just going to check on Lev.
I was ready to face whatever danger was out there and burn it all to the ground.
Because somewhere between hating him and marrying him, between fighting him and falling into his bed, Lev Antonov had become something I couldn’t afford to lose.
And I’d destroy anyone who tried to take him from me.
Chapter 11 – Lev
After Trev left, I sat in the crushing silence of my office, staring at the door he’d walked through. The ghost of his words hung in the air like smoke:You didn’t get the signal because you made peace without me, but I never made it without you.
I shook my head, trying to clear the fog of emotion that threatened to cloud my judgment. I had work to do. Enemies to identify. A war to prepare for.
My hands moved with mechanical precision as I opened the locked drawer and pulled out the thick file marked with Taras Kozak’s name. The folder was worn from years of handling, pages yellowed with age and stained with coffee rings. Some secrets aged like fine wine. Others festered like infected wounds.
I spread the contents across my desk, photographs and intelligence reports creating a mosaic of violence that stretched back three decades. Taras Kozak stared up at me from a surveillance photo, his face twisted with the kind of hatred that burned for generations. Dead now, killed by my father’s hand in the aftermath of our childhood home burning to ash.
