Page 8 of The Russian's Innocent Prey
“When?” I asked.
“When he’s dead.” My father’s eyes were starting to lose focus, but his grip on my hand remained steady. “When the threat is gone, you can have your family back.”
Family. The word felt foreign in my mouth, like a language I’d forgotten how to speak.
“Promise me,” he said, and his voice was barely audible now. “Promise me you’ll keep them safe.”
“I promise.”
He nodded once, satisfied, and then his eyes closed. The machines around us started screaming, alarms and alerts that brought nurses running. They pushed me out of the way, tried to save a man who was already gone, but I barely noticed.
I stood in the corner of that sterile room and watched my father die for the second time in my life, the envelope clutched in my hands like a lifeline. The photographs of my mother and brother felt like they weighed nothing and everything at the same time—proof of a life I’d never known existed, family I’d grieved for twenty-seven years who were out there somewhere, living and breathing and completely unaware that I existed.
The machines went quiet. The nurses stopped moving. Time stuttered and stopped, and in that moment of absolute silence, I felt something inside me break open—not the clean break of grief, but the messy, complicated fracture of hope and rage and twenty-seven years of misdirected pain.
My father was dead. My family was alive. And somewhere in Chicago, Anya Voronov was probably stepping off a plane, walking back into a life I was no longer sure I understood.
Everything I’d believed about myself, about my history, about the man I’d become—all of it was built on lies. Well-intentioned lies, maybe, but lies, nonetheless. And now I had to figure out who the fuck I was supposed to be in a world where the dead could come back to life and the living could disappear without a trace.
I looked down at the photograph of my brother one more time, memorizing the face that was and wasn’t mine. Trev. Detective Trev Antonov, living his life in Australia, while his twin brother turned into exactly the kind of man he probably arrested for a living.
The symmetry was so perfect it almost seemed intentional.
I tucked the envelope inside my jacket, close to my heart where it burned like a brand. Then I walked out of that hospital and into a world that had just become infinitely more complicated.
Petro Kozak was somewhere out there, breathing air he didn’t deserve. And until he stopped breathing it, my family—my real family—would remain hidden. Safe but lost, alive but unreachable.
Just like I’d been for twenty-seven years.
The difference was, now I knew exactly who I needed to kill to get them back.
Chapter 2 – Anya
The sharp scent of fabric dyes mingled with the soft notes of French jazz drifting from the speakers mounted in the corners of my studio. It was supposed to be calming—this carefully curated atmosphere I’d built to nurture creativity—but today it felt suffocating. Even the music, usually my salvation during stressful moments, couldn’t drown out the tension knotting between my shoulder blades.
“The numbers don’t lie, Anya.” Milo’s voice crackled through the phone speaker, tinged with that particular brand of gentle frustration he reserved for conversations about money. “We’re stretched too thin.”
I pressed my fingers against my temples and stared at the fabric samples scattered across my desk—silk in champagne, wool in deep emerald, cotton in the softest blush pink. Each piece represented hours of sourcing, negotiating, dreaming. Each piece was a small rebellion against the world that said I couldn’t build something beautiful and clean with my own two hands.
“I know the budget is tight,” I said, picking up a swatch of midnight blue velvet and rubbing it between my fingers. “But cutting corners now means compromising the vision. This collection is everything.”
“I’m not asking you to cut corners. I’m asking you to be strategic.” Papers rustled on his end, the sound of someone flipping through spreadsheets and profit projections. “Shrink the collection. Twenty pieces instead of thirty. Raise the retail prices to compensate. The demand is there, Anya. We can afford to be selective.”
Twenty pieces. The number hit me like a slap because I knew he was right, even if I hated admitting it. Every dress, every suit, every carefully constructed silhouette had been plannedwith the precision of a military campaign. Cutting ten pieces meant killing ten dreams, ten stories I’d wanted to tell through fabric and thread.
“Which ten?” I asked, already knowing the answer would hurt.
“The experimental ones. The pieces that push boundaries but might not sell.” His tone was apologetic but firm. “Save them for next season when we have more room to breathe.”
I closed my eyes and let the music wash over me—a saxophone melody that spoke of longing and loss. This was the price of independence, of building something from nothing while refusing to compromise on quality. Every decision was a knife’s edge between artistic integrity and commercial survival.
“Fine,” I said finally. “Send me your recommendations. But I get final approval on the cuts.”
“Of course. You’re the visionary here. I’m just the guy who makes sure we can afford to eat while you’re changing the world.”
After we hung up, I sat in the quiet for a moment, surrounded by the detritus of creation—sketches pinned to boards, fabric samples organized by color and texture, half-finished pieces draped over mannequins like ghosts of future selves. This studio was my sanctuary, the one place where the chaos of my family’s world couldn’t touch me.
Or so I’d thought.
