Page 64 of Used By the Merciless Bratva
My eyes grew heavy. The sheer emotional toll of the past few days, culminating in this raw, honest moment, was finally catching up to me. I heard his soft, slow breaths and felt his solid presence. I let my own breath deepen, matching his rhythm.
I was no longer alone in this. And the thought, terrifying as it was, was also profoundly comforting. I drifted, held securely in his arms, the storm outside a distant echo, the world within our embrace quiet and, for the first time, safe.
Chapter 22 – Danil
The quiet of my study was a welcome relief from the chaos of the outside world. I sat at my desk, the wound on my side a dull, constant throb beneath my bandages. The pain was a sharp reminder of the new reality I was living in, a reality where my world and caterers were now one, vulnerable to the same threats. Her trust, given so conditionally, felt like both a shield and a powerful, new purpose. I had to protect her. At all costs.
A knock on my door, and Luka entered. He looked more tired than usual, his face pale. In his hand, he held a dark, unopened bottle of wine.
“Danil,” he said, his voice flat.
I glanced at the antique clock on the wall. “Luka, it’s not even noon. This feels a little early to start drinking.”
He didn’t smile. He just set the wine bottle down on my desk, the glass making a quietthudagainst the polished wood. “This arrived yesterday. For you and your wife. A wedding gift.”
The words sent a prickle of unease down my spine. This timing, the gesture—it all felt wrong. It wasn’t our wedding anniversary. We hadn’t celebrated anything. “From who?” I asked, my voice suddenly colder.
“That’s the thing,” he said, his gaze locked on the bottle. “The note was generic. A gift for the happy couple. But it didn’t sit right with me. The messenger, the timing…. I had it tested.” He finally looked up at me, his eyes grim. “It’s poisoned. A highly potent nerve agent. Enough to kill a dozen men.”
My blood ran cold. My mind, usually so quick to react, went completely blank. A wedding gift. For my wife and me. A quiet, insidious poison. It wasn’t a warning. It was a direct assassination attempt, a message in a bottle.
“Katria,” I said, the word a choke in my throat. I had held it. I was in the same room as her. She had been here, in the sameroom. I could have brought it to her myself. I could have killed her.
“She hasn’t touched it, Danil,” Luka said, as if reading my mind. “It was intercepted before it made it to her.”
“Who sent it?” I asked the question in a low, dangerous growl. “Who delivered it?”
I stared at the wine bottle, my mind reeling. My blood ran cold, a silent terror gripping my heart. “Who delivered it?” I repeated, my voice now low, a dangerous growl. “Where did it come from?”
Luka met my gaze, his own eyes grim. “It was a young delivery rider. He seemed completely clueless, Danil. He just had the package. We tracked his route and found the courier service. It’s a local company, a small outfit. They were hired through a ghost account. But the package itself…we were able to trace the label.”
He paused, a heavy silence hanging in the air between us. “It came from a local vineyard. And one of the owners listed on the company registry…is Feliks.”
The name hit me like a physical blow. Feliks. It was always him; he wasn’t just a traitor. He was a murderer. He had tried to kill me. He had tried to kill Katria. My hands clenched into fists, a raw, murderous rage bubbling just beneath the surface.
“I need your permission to move on him, Danil,” Luka said, his voice filled with a desperate urgency. “We can arrest him. We can interrogate him. We can get the truth out of him before he has a chance to disappear.”
My first instinct was to say yes. To unleash every man, every resource, to tear him apart. But then, I remembered the last time I had acted on instinct. The last time I had killed a man who was, in the end, innocent. And I thought of Katria. Of her tears. Of her warning.
If you’re lying to me…I will never forgive you.
“No,” I said, the word a slow, firm command.
Luka’s eyes widened in disbelief. “No? Danil, he tried to poison you. He tried to poison your wife! We have him!”
“We have him on a technicality,” I countered, my voice low and steady. “He’s old and confident. He’s been playing this game his entire life. If we arrest him now, based on a single piece of evidence that could be plausibly explained away as amistake,he will get out of it again. He’ll use his connections, his resources. He’ll lawyer up, and he’ll be a free man within a week. And then he’ll have a clear target on our backs.”
I stood, walking to the window, my gaze fixed on the storm-swept trees outside. “He thinks he’s invisible. He thinks he’s untouchable. We won’t give him the satisfaction of a panicked, amateur move. We won’t give him a chance to get away.” I turned back to Luka, my eyes a silent command. “I want you to compile every single piece of evidence we’ve already found. Every laundering transaction. Every suspicious meeting. Every dirty deal. And I want a case so airtight, so overwhelming, that when we finally move, he has nowhere to go. No one to call. No way to escape.”
Luka was silent for a moment, processing my words. He finally nodded, a slow look of respect on his face. “Yes, Danil. We’ll do it. But….” He gestured to the wine bottle. “Things are no longer safe here. He’s made his move. He knows where you are.”
“I know,” I said, my face now fixed on the door of my suite. “And because of that…I’ll take Katria away. To one of the other houses. We’ll be harder to find there. Harder to reach.”
Luka modded and left, the silence in the study growing heavy with the weight of our shared secret. A poisoned bottle. A gift for my wife and me. The cold rage that had consumed me after my father’s death was back, but this time, it was different. It wasn’t a blind fury. It was a focused, malevolent fire, aimedat a single purpose: the protection of Katria.Feliks had crossed a line, a line he could never uncross. He had made this personal.
I walked from the study, my steps deliberate. I had to go to get it. I had to tell her. Not all of it, but enough to make her understand. Enough to make her move. I knew this wouldn’t be easy. She wouldn’t simply obey. She was not a subordinate, not a guard, not an employee. She was my wife. And she was a fighter.
I found her in the library, a book in her hands, her brow furrowed in concentration. The quiet of the room, the image of her, so calm and peaceful, was a stark contrast to the violence I had just heard about.
