Page 19 of Bratva’s Vow (Bratva’s Undoing #2)

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

MAXIM

I couldn’t stop watching him.

The live feed from the security camera played silently in the corner of my monitor, unfolding in real time like a wound that refused to close.

Wren.

Curled up on the bed, knees tucked to his chest, face half-buried in a mountain of pillows like he could hide from the world. But mostly from me.

I couldn’t tear my eyes away. Every small movement felt magnified.

The way his shoulders trembled when he thought no one was looking.

The way he clutched the blanket, fingers white-knuckled.

The way he pressed his lips together until they trembled and finally parted on a sigh that made something twist painfully low in my gut.

He wasn’t sleeping.

He wasn’t eating.

He wasn’t talking to me.

He was hurting .

And I couldn’t do a damn thing but watch it happen.

Sometimes, when he’d had enough, he would cry.

The first time it happened, I’d bolted from my office and had Sergei drive me back home instantly. I nearly took the fucking door off its hinges to get to him.

For showing him I cared, he threw a painting from the wall at me. Followed by other missiles. What he threw wasn’t important. What mattered was the pure hate in his eyes. The way his voice cracked as he screamed at me to get the fuck out and never come back.

I left.

Not because I was afraid of Wren.

But because I was afraid of myself.

Afraid of what that look of betrayal did to me.

I was the Pakhan.

I’d cut men’s throats in alleys. I’d ordered executions with my coffee still hot on my desk. I’d buried enemies so deep they were nothing but forgotten names.

But Wren crying?

That shattered me in a way blood and broken bones never could.

I should’ve been strong enough to face him.

I wasn’t.

So now, I watched.

Like a fucking coward, I watched him cry on a screen instead of kneeling at his feet and begging for forgiveness. He’d made it clear he wouldn’t forgive me. How could I blame him? I was the reason his father was dead, and I’d kept it from him.

Still, I held out hope. If he’d lied to the cops for me, surely all wasn’t lost.

I scrubbed a hand down my face, my jaw tight as I forced myself to tear my gaze away from the monitor.

But it dragged me back .

Over and over again, like punishment.

The soft knock on the office door came almost as a relief.

“Come in,” I said roughly, my voice like gravel scraping against itself.

Archie stepped in, dressed in one of his usual immaculate gray suits that looked more comfortable on him than skin. He came around and placed a fresh cup of coffee I hadn’t asked for on my desk.

I’d gotten used to Wren bringing me coffee. Decaf he would insist, even when I asked him for something stronger. Because I already had trouble going to bed at night, and he slept better when I was next to him.

Archie’s gaze flicked to the monitor, and I caught the sharp pull at the corner of his mouth. Wren was still visible. Still curled up like he was shrinking away from the world.

Archie didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to.

I saw it in his face.

I told you so.

He still disapproved of Wren.

I held Archie’s stare for a long beat, tension stretching taut between us. Then I exhaled slowly and leaned back in my chair, nodding once.

“I know,” I muttered. “Don’t say it.”

Archie didn’t. He was smart enough to leave the silence alone. Instead, he straightened his cuffs.

“Everyone’s waiting in the conference room.”

I ran a hand through my hair, already feeling the headache blooming behind my eyes.

“Is there any word?” I asked quietly.

Archie’s face hardened. “Not yet. The chief’s still a ghost. Our sources at the precinct say he’s gone dark. No credit cards, no phone. The bastard planned this well.”

I ground my molars together so hard they ached.

Coward .

A coward who had no problem signing off on my murder like it was some backroom deal. After all I’d done for him.

He’d sent a man to kill me in public, to make a statement. That failed.

And now he was hiding.

Of course. That was what men like him did.

I rose from my chair slowly, straightening my sleeves with mechanical movements. Everything inside me felt rigid, wound up so tightly I didn’t know how I was still standing upright.

I grabbed my phone and walked to the door, but my eyes drifted, almost against my will, back to the monitor.

Back to Wren.

Still in bed. Still looking small and fragile and so far away from the boy who hung up on me because I swore at him. Or bought me a medical bracelet with his information on it for my birthday. I twisted the bracelet on my wrist.

You broke him.

That voice inside me wasn’t kind. It wasn’t forgiving. It sounded like Jess, who’d been pissed when she found out about Wren’s father. Both Nik and Darius hadn’t been able to hold her back while she screamed at me that she would have never agreed to keep my secret if she’d known the full truth.

I swallowed thickly and forced my feet to move, slamming the office door shut behind me harder than necessary.

When I entered the conference room, the buzzing conversations stopped.

Sergei stood against the far wall, arms crossed, his face tight with concern.

While Nik no longer worked directly for me, he was Wren’s bodyguard, so I’d asked him to be present at all our briefings until we had Stone.

We needed all hands on deck. He and Darius flanked him Sergei, looking equally grim.

Archie took his place at my right side like clockwork.

It didn’t feel right. That was Wren’s place .

The weight of that burned more than I cared to admit.

I didn’t sit. I planted my hands flat on the table and stared at the men assembled before me.

“No one has eyes on him yet?” I asked, my voice sharp as broken glass.

“Not yet,” Sergei said. “We’re watching his known associates. His wife’s under surveillance, but he hasn’t contacted her. His usual haunts are empty.”

“Which means that he’s smarter than we gave him credit for.”

Silence. Heavy. Loaded.

I clenched my jaw so tightly my teeth ached.

I wanted blood.

I wanted his head cracked against pavement, his body dumped in the same hole his hired killer was rotting in.

But most of all…

I wanted Wren safe.

Not just locked in his room. Not just under guard.

Safe.

Safe from men like Bradley, who thought they could use him to hurt me. If he’d cared an ounce about Wren, he wouldn’t have threatened to throw him off the roof. He’d wanted revenge, and he’d used Wren to strike one last blow before his death.

“You have one week,” I said at last, cutting through the silence like a blade.

“Find him. I don’t care how. I don’t care what strings you have to pull or who you piss off.

I want the chief’s face in front of me or in a casket.

Otherwise, you’ll leave me with no choice but to get the brigadiers involved. ”

Which was the last thing I wanted to do.

The fewer eyes on me, the better. Even among our own.

The brigadiers answered to me but not directly.

That was the point of me building what seemed to be a legitimate empire on the front.

It gave me contacts with people who would otherwise not be willing to shake hands.

Most Pakhans liked to be seen, to flaunt their power.

I’d built power in silence, kept my hands clean in public, and let Archie and Sergei be my mouthpieces when needed.

Several brigadiers might have fallen since I rose to power, but even if I was a suspect, the Feds had nothing that stuck. No photos. No names. No bodies that could point back to me with more than speculation.

And that was how I kept it.

The Bratva thrived because I did. Because I stayed off the radar. Because the empire looked fractured from the outside, a scattered beast with no head, when in truth, every move flowed through my hand.

But if it meant keeping Wren safe, I’d tear the mask off myself. I’d become that man who’d killed ruthlessly to be at the top. And all because my father had thought I was useless in the brotherhood because I enjoyed fucking another man.

I straightened, pacing a slow line behind my chair. The anger simmered beneath my skin, but so did something colder—strategy.

“We’ll also be beefing up security,” I said, voice low and deliberate. “I can’t hold Wren forever. In less than a week, he’ll have to return to campus for his classes. I want the chief to be found before then.”

Archie frowned. “You can’t be serious.”

“I am. You think I don’t know how this works?

You think I don’t know he’ll claw his way out of that house the second I loosen my grip?

” My mouth twisted. “But I also know it’ll only take one person—one—to grab him when I’m not watching.

So when he goes back to campus, he goes with someone at all times.

No exceptions, and if you lose him, it’ll be your head on the chopping block. ”

The room went deathly quiet.

Sergei shifted his weight, folding his arms tighter across his chest. “This isn’t a good idea, Maxim. He might not have turned you in, but he despises you.”

That word “despises” landed like a sucker punch to the gut.

Despises.

I clenched my jaw until something in my temple throbbed, but I didn’t let them see how much it hurt me.

“He’ll come around,” I said stiffly, though I didn’t sound entirely convinced. “I need to give him time.”

Archie raised his eyebrows. “And what if he doesn’t? Do you really think he’ll forget everything?”

That was the question, wasn’t it?

If Wren didn’t come around… if he never forgave me. What then? I hadn’t let myself think that far. I couldn’t. He had to come around.

“I need one of you to get close to Bradley’s husband,” I said. “Tap his phone, install bugs in their home—subtle ones. I want to know if his husband knows anything. If Bradley ever spoke to him about his plans… or about the chief.”

“Risky,” Nik muttered but didn’t argue.

“I’ll do it,” Sergei said.