Page 5 of Bratva’s Vow (Bratva’s Undoing #2)

CHAPTER FOUR

MAXIM

T he screams had stopped.

The music, the lasers, the fake smoke. Everything had been silenced.

The whole building was still now, unnaturally still. One could almost smell the fear hanging in the air.

I stood in the main hall of TagX, coat off, shirt sleeves rolled to the elbows, blood smeared down one arm. Not mine, but Sergei’s.

In front of me sat six workers on the floor in various stages of visible panic, ranging from white-knuckled silence to quiet, shaking sobs. Their matching uniforms did nothing to make them look like a team anymore. Just prey.

Darius stood behind them with a weapon holstered but visible, arms crossed.

Viktor, who’d arrived a few minutes ago, loomed at the door.

Two more of my men were outside with Sergei, tending to the wound.

A clean shot, deep enough to bleed but not to kill.

It could’ve been worse. It should’ve been worse .

That bullet had been meant for me. Luckily, Sergei had shoved me out of the way, not because he’d known it was a real gun at the time, but because he’d been trained to take a bullet for me. Even during laser tag, his instinct had kicked in.

How an armed intruder had gotten into the room was beyond me. I was seeking answers because the fact that Wren had been with me when this happened was unforgivable.

What if Wren had been the one who got hit?

That guy with the bone sticking out of his leg because he thought it was smart to get fresh with me was lucky he only had a broken limb.

If it had been Wren who got shot, he’d be dead.

I stepped forward, slow and deliberate, until the faint clicking of my shoes against the polished floor made one of the employees flinch.

“Everyone here right now,” I said, voice low, measured, “was working during the last hour. Yes?”

Everyone nodded. No one dared speak.

“Then someone in this room either let the shooter in or turned a blind eye.” I clasped my hands behind my back, forcing myself not to clench them into fists. “I’m not interested in theories. I want facts. Names. Access logs. Security footage. Everything.”

One of the workers, a tall, pale guy with a trembling jaw and a clipboard clutched to his chest, cleared his throat.

“We-we have security cameras in the corridors and the staff entrances, but not in the game arena itself. That’s standard.

Corporate doesn’t like the idea of kids being filmed in the dark. ”

“I want to see every frame of footage from today. I want a full log of staff members who had access to the restricted zones. And I want it in the next five minutes.”

The room stayed frozen .

“We-we don’t have access to all that.” I tracked the speaker. Casey. The one who’d welcomed us into TagX. “The manager has the system password, and he-he’s not here.”

I slammed my palm against the wall, and she jumped, biting off the rest of her sentence with a squeak. I stepped in front of her. Bent just enough to meet her eye. “Bullshit. Someone else must have access to the system. What if something happened to the manager? Who’s next in charge?”

No answer. I let the silence stretch on, allowing each second to emphasize my impatience. Casey swallowed hard, her wide eyes glistening with unshed tears.

The last thing I wanted was to hurt any of them. They were just doing their jobs. Minus the fucker who’d taken a shot at me.

“Listen to me, Casey. You look like a smart woman. We came here for a good time. That’s all.

We would have been in and out of here with no problems, but someone, someone decided to play God with my life, and now I need to do the same with theirs.

There’s no reason anyone else has to get involved in this.

You were responsible for our party, so it’d be in your best interest to give us what we need to find the person behind this.

” I lifted her chin with a finger. “Otherwise, I’ll have no choice but to take it that you’re in on this plot to kill me. ”

Her eyes went wild, and she shook her head. “No, I didn’t know anything. It’s Bryan. Bryan has access to the security feed.”

She pointed at the guy whose leg I’d broken.

He was pale, sweaty, and his eyes darted around in panic. I rose to my feet and crossed my arms. “Bryan, it’s officially nice to meet you. I am Maxim—Maxim Morozov. Now I can be the man who gets you medical attention stat or the man who breaks your other leg. For starters. What’s it going to be? ”

He spilled his guts. In no time, my men had set up screens along the check-in desk so we could scrub through the footage at high speed. Viktor brought Bryan to the doctor who was working on Sergei’s arm to get his leg fixed.

One of the guys watching the footage tensed. “Mr. Morozov, I think I’ve found something.”

I strode over. The footage wasn’t crystal clear, but it was good enough. A man, average build, hoodie up. No laser tag gear. Moving through the back corridor too quickly to be casual.

“Where does that hallway lead?” I asked.

“To the staff only entrance,” Casey whispered. “And storage.”

“Zoom in.”

The hoodie flickered forward a few steps, head down, but I saw enough. He hadn’t been a guest. No wristband. No vest. And the moment he turned sideways toward the maintenance panel, I spotted the weapon.

Small. Concealed.

For a moment, I didn’t move.

Then I turned back to the room. My pulse was a cold throb under my skin. “Someone let him in. He didn’t come through the main entrance. He doesn’t have a pass. Someone opened a door.”

Silence.

The clipboard guy surged to his feet and ran, skidding on the slick floor, slipping and righting himself. He made it as far as the hallway before Viktor slammed him against the wall with a grunt, dragging him back by the collar.

“No, please!” the man shrieked. “Please, I didn’t know! I swear to god, I didn’t know what he was going to do!”

He kicked and thrashed, his clipboard clattering to the ground, papers spilling. “He said it was just to scare someone! I didn’t think he’d really—he said it wasn’t loaded. He said he just needed access. Please, I swear, I didn’t know!”

The sound grated against my skull. His panicked, blubbering voice. The high, nasal desperation.

I walked over calmly, slowly. The workers pressed themselves against the walls, a couple of them turning their faces away. The man was still crying, loud, wet sobs, words tumbling over each other in a useless flood.

“I didn’t mean to—I thought it was just a prank! He said no one would get hurt?—”

Crack.

My fist drove into his face so fast he didn’t even get to flinch. His head snapped to the side, a tooth flying out, blood splashing across the floor.

He made a broken, whimpering sound.

Crack.

Another punch. His nose crunched audibly under my knuckles. His body went slack in Viktor’s grip.

“Take him.” I shook my hand to take the sting out. “You know where. Keep him alive.”

Viktor nodded and hauled the man’s unconscious body toward the back, leaving a smeared red trail where his shoes dragged across the tile.

I turned back to the others, every inch of me thrumming with the need for more blood, more justice, more something to offset the image in my head of what could have happened. I exhaled slowly, letting the rage settle into its usual, manageable boil.

I faced the remaining workers, calm again.

“If any of you are still confused about how serious this is,” I said quietly, “let me make it clear. A bullet was fired in this building. Not a prop. Not a laser. A real bullet meant to kill me. But more importantly, it could have killed the one person I care about more than anyone. ”

Silence settled over the room, heavy and charged. From the facial expressions they understood where I was going.

“You may not understand who I am. Some of you may think you’ve met dangerous men before. Gangsters. Thugs. Thieves. But I am not one of them.”

I took a step forward, and they shrank back instinctively.

“I am not just a man with money or power. I am a Bratva Pakhan, and there is no corner of this country where my reach does not extend. If I want someone found, they are found. If I want someone gone, they vanish.”

Casey’s hand flew to her mouth, her eyes wide.

“I do not harm the innocent. You do not need to fear me if you return to your lives and pretend this day never happened. If you don’t get involved in my business, I will never set foot in this building again.”

My voice was soft now, almost conversational.

“But if you so much as whisper about what happened here, if a single word reaches the wrong ear, if I get picked up by the police, even for a second, none of you will live long enough to regret it.”

I gave them a thin, cold smile.

“Not because I’ll send someone. But because they’ll already be watching. And they’ll be very eager to clean up the mess.”

Casey was shaking. I almost felt bad for her. Almost. But men who were afraid kept their mouths shut. Those who tried to be brave? I buried them.

Bravery wasn’t worth the cost. Some learned only too late that the philosophy of truth sounded noble until your tongue was in a box and your body nowhere to be found.

I looked at each of them, then exhaled, my shoulders settling a little.

“This was supposed to be a nice, relaxing afternoon.” I sighed. “A chance to have fun. To give the man I love a good memory. Instead, I have to go home and lie to him about why our day ended early. Because a coworker of yours decided to entertain a bit of fun at the expense of my life.”

I gave one final glance around the room.

“Be smart. Stay silent. And this can end here.”

Then I turned and walked away, the slap of my shoes against the floor the only sound in the quiet room. Behind me, no one moved.

No one dared.