Page 95 of Bratva Bride

“She’s not picking up,” I bite out. “And neither is Maksim. Goddamn it.”

I can hear the panic clawing at my voice, but I can’t rein it in.

Rifat leans forward between the seats. “You think something went wrong?”

“I know it did.”

She wouldn’t be silent unless she had no choice.

Beside me, Rifat shifts uneasily. “She knew the ship was a trap. Said it herself. They wouldn’t give Nikolai up without blood?—”

“She knew,” I cut in. “That’s exactly why she went.”

She called while I was still at the club…

I close my eyes, pretending to rest, when the phone buzzes in my pocket. Her name lights up the screen like oxygen.

“You have to go to the meeting,” she says the second I answer. “Viktor’s planning something. It’s happening tonight.”

“Yeah,” I say quietly, looking up at the ceiling. “He said as much. Took me out of the loop for a reason.”

“What’s that? Did he try to give you something?” she asks, concerned.“Did you drink anything?”

“I’m not that easy to take out.”

I can hear her breathing. Fast. Like she’s walking quickly through wind.

“I don’t like this. I don’t like you being there with him alone.”

“And I don’t like you going to that ship by yourself,” I say. “You know it’s bait. You said it yourself.”

“I don’t have a choice, Kon. If there’s even the smallest chance Nikolai is there, I have to take it.”

“We could go together?—”

“We can’t.” Her voice cracks just slightly before she masks it. “They’re watching. Listening. If we disappear together, they’ll know.”

I want to argue. But she’s right. We’re stronger when the rest of the world thinks we’re apart. When we look like we’re falling apart.

“You know I’ll come for you,” I say. “If anything happens. I’ll crawl to you if I have to, but I will come.”

I pull the car up just beyond the reach of the sodium lights, heart thundering. The engine hums beneath me, the smell of salt and oil thick in the air. As I open the door, a jolt of pain tears through my thigh. I grit my teeth and press a hand to my leg. The wound from Viktor—still raw, still bleeding through the gauze beneath my jeans—makes every movement agony.

But none of it matters.

Pain is only a shadow compared to the fear clawing at my gut. Nadya is somewhere in that tangle of steel and shadows. She needs me. Nikolai needs me. I force myself out of the car, ignoring the throb that runs like fire up my side.

Rifat glances down at my limp. “You sure you can run on that?”

“I don’t have a choice,” I snap, hobbling toward the gangway. “She’s in there, and she’s not alone.”

Arman falls in behind me, eyes narrowed. “Don’t do anything reckless.”

I almost laugh at that. Everything about tonight is reckless. The only thing worse would be letting pain or fear keep me from my wife.

I steel myself, push through the agony, and lead us toward the ghostly outline of the ship.

We move in silence, boots thudding across broken concrete as we approach the looming hulk. Rusted gangways groan under our weight. The only light comes from the moon, glinting on oil-slick water and the jagged teeth of steel railings.