Page 8 of Innocent Prey of the Bratva
“What should we do with her, Boss?” Milo asks, his voice cutting through my thoughts.
Maxim shoots him a look sharp enough to slit throats. “Shut up,” it says without words.
Milo mumbles something and lowers his gaze, lips pressing into a tight line. I don’t answer. Not yet. My fingers are still wrapped around the camera, thumb hovering over the final image of my face staring right into the camera.
Before I can answer, the door opens again, and Arina Morova strolls in, whistling like they haven’t just walked into a damn war room.
They’re wearing neon green suspenders over a cropped mesh tank that shows off the full-sleeve tattoos running down both arms—dragons and circuitry and stars, colliding like chaoson her skin. Their blond pixie cut is styled sharply today, and their lipstick is matte black, like the nail polish on their fingers, as always. They look like they stepped out of an anarchist runway. Not like the security chief and tech expert they very much are. They’re gender nonconforming, so every day is a circus show of fashion for them.
Arina walks toward my table and glances at the camera screen, which still shows my frozen face. They whistle low, arms folding behind their head as they lean against the desk.
“Well, damn,” they say with a smirk. “You look hot in that shot. Very MafiaVogue.”
I don’t bother looking at them. “What do you want?”
“I did some digging on our little photographer.” They smirk and toss a flash drive onto the desk like it’s a mic drop. “Violet Harrison. Twenty-two. Literature major at the university. She’s in her final year. GPA’s solid. Smart girl. Freelances for three crime blogs, mostly digital, decently trafficked.”
Arina thinks they’re giving me new information, but there’s nothing about Violet I don’t already know. Hell, they’re probably the only one in this room who doesn’t know Violet. To their credit, Maxim and Milo stay silent.
Arina continues, “She writes murder pieces. Break-ins. Cold cases. Missing persons. Legit stuff, not the weird Reddit tinfoil corner. She’s good—like, ‘knows how to get past police tape without being noticed’ good.”
“Break-ins,” Maxim murmurs beside me. “There was a robbery at the pawnshop near the alley last night. She must’ve been there for that.”
Arina nods. “Exactly. Robbery gone sideways. One guy dead. She probably heard about it and showed up for her usual moody, back-alley shots. She didn’t know what she was walking into. She wasn’t looking for you.”
I don’t say anything, but my jaw tenses.
“She’s innocent,” Arina adds, softer now, reading my silence. “And Boss…she’s way too sweet to be anywhere near this shit.”
I know. Fuck it, I know. But when have I ever backed down from something I wanted? Especially when it played right into my hands.
“She looks like she writes poetry in the margins of her textbooks and cries during Hallmark commercials,” Arina says with a short laugh. “Not exactly trained for the Bratva bloodbath.”
I keep staring at the screen, pushing out Arina’s voice that insists Violet is innocent and only focusing on mine. She’s seen too much. She knows too much. I must take care of this.
Even though Arina’s still talking, I already know what I’m going to do.
“She’s innocent,” they say again, like it makes a difference. “Just caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
I turn my gaze from the screen and look at them. “Doesn’t matter.”
Arina blinks. “Boss—”
“She’s a loose end now,” I say, voice cold, final. “And I don’t keep loose ends.”
There’s a beat of silence in the room. Even Milo straightens from where he’s leaning by the door.
Arina crosses their arms, jaw tightening. “You’re going to take her out because she happened to be doing her job?”
“She wasn’t just walking by,” I snap. “She had a camera. She has photos. And she writes about this kind of thing for a living. She’s not just going to forget it.”
“We have her camera, and she hasn’t published anything—”
“Yet,” I cut in sharply. “But how long before she does? How long before some editor waves a paycheck in her face and she starts typing up what she saw in that alley? Even if she doesn’t name me, all it takes is one wrong sentence, one image to get into the wrong hands.”
I rise from my chair, the finality of the decision settling like lead in my chest.
“I can’t afford that risk. I won’t.”
