Page 19 of Crystal Wrath (Rostov Bratva #1)

I exhale through my nose, fighting the urge to punch something.

The casual way she refers to her injuries as if nearly dying is just another occupational hazard makes me want to shake her until she understands the gravity of what's happened.

She could have been killed. Blown to pieces.

Reduced to nothing more than a memory and a crater in a parking lot.

“You need protection,” I state, the words coming out more like a command than a suggestion.

“You mean I need to stop digging,” she counters, that stubborn lift to her chin that I'm beginning to recognize as a warning sign.

“No,” I insist, shaking my head firmly. “I mean you need to stay with me. At my house. Where I can control who comes and goes. Where no one gets within five feet of you without permission.”

I watch her process the words. My house in Coral Gables is more of a fortress than a home, surrounded by walls and security systems that would make a military base envious. It's the one place in Miami where I can guarantee her safety, where Francesco's reach doesn't extend.

She lets out a laugh that's all disbelief and bitterness, the sound sharp enough to cut. “You want me to move into your mansion? What is that, a gilded cage with bulletproof windows?”

The accuracy of her description shouldn't surprise me, but it does. She sees through the offer to the reality beneath and understands that protection and imprisonment are sometimes indistinguishable.

“It's the only way you survive this,” I warn her, and the truth of it sits heavy in my chest. I've seen what Francesco is capable of, the lengths he'll go to eliminate threats. Elena has painted a target on her back that won't disappear just because she wants it to.

“You mean, the only way you control this,” she shoots back, and her words slice clean through me. Not because she's wrong but because she's too close to the truth.

Control is how I keep people alive. It's how I've managed to stay alive.

In my world, the difference between protection and possession is often measured in degrees rather than absolutes.

But hearing her express it, seeing the accusation in her eyes, makes me question the motivations I thought I understood.

She sits straighter, wincing from the pain but not stopping. The movement pulls at her injuries, and I can see her fighting not to show weakness. Everything about her posture screams defiance, from the set of her shoulders to the way she meets my gaze without blinking.

“Tell me the truth, Renat,” she demands. “No more games. Are you Russian mafia?”

The question hangs between us like a blade suspended by a thread.

I could lie. I could deflect, make excuses, and find ways to avoid giving her the confirmation she's looking for.

But looking at her now, bruised and bandaged because she was brave enough to dig for the truth, I find I can't insult her intelligence with deception.

I meet her eyes, not blinking, not flinching from what I'm about to reveal. “Yes.”

I see her flinch just a little, as if the confirmation lands with a force she’s been dreading but hoped wasn’t true. But she doesn't look away. Whatever else Elena Martinez might be, she's not a coward.

“And the real estate?” she continues, her voice steady despite everything. “The shell companies, the zoning bribes, the families you've pushed out of Little Havana?”

The questions come rapid-fire, each one a knife twist in a wound I didn't know I had. She's done her homework and connected dots that most people wouldn't even know existed. But her understanding is incomplete, colored by assumptions about how my world operates.

“I don't do bribes,” I declare coldly, the words clipped and precise. “I make investments. People move because they're paid to. Because they accept terms. Not because I force them.”

She scoffs, and the sound is full of disbelief and disappointment. “Semantics.”

“No,” I growl, moving closer to her bed until I'm standing at the foot of it, close enough to see the flecks of gold in her brown eyes. “Survival.”

The distinction matters, even if she can't see it.

In a world where violence is currency and respect is bought with blood, the difference between coercion and negotiation can mean the difference between life and death.

I've built my empire on calculated moves, not random brutality.

But explaining that to someone from her world, someone who still believes in clear lines between right and wrong, feels impossible.

“You don't even deny it,” she observes, and her voice softens, the fight leaving it like air escaping from a punctured balloon. “You're Bratva. You have blood on your hands. And I slept with you. God, I was so...”

She doesn't finish the sentence, but I can fill in the blanks. Naive. Stupid. Blind. Pick any word that means she trusted someone she shouldn't have and believed in something that doesn't exist.

I reach for her then. I can't help it. The need to touch her, to bridge the growing distance between us, overrides every instinct for self-preservation I've developed over the years.

My fingers find hers and close around them before she can pull away, and the contact sends electricity shooting up my arm.

Her hand is smaller than mine, delicate, but I can feel the strength in her fingers. These are hands that have typed a thousand stories, held pens that have exposed corruption, and touched lives through words on a page. They're hands that deserve better than being stained by association with mine.

“You weren't wrong,” I murmur, my voice low and rough with emotions I'm not used to expressing. “You were human. And you saw something in me I stopped believing existed a long time ago.”

The admission cost me something I didn't know I still had to lose.

Vulnerability. The acknowledgment that beneath the suits and the violence and the careful control, there might still be something worth saving.

She's shown me glimpses of who I could be if I weren't who I am.

The possibility is both intoxicating and terrifying.

She doesn't respond right away. She just watches me, her brown eyes searching my face like she's looking for something specific.

Maybe she's trying to find that part of me she saw before, the man who existed for brief moments between the monster and the mask.

Perhaps she's trying to determine if any of it was genuine or if it was all just another lie in a life built on deception.

“I can't stay with you,” she finally declares, her voice tight with resolve and regret. “Because if I do, I lose whatever part of me still believes in the truth. I become another woman who looked away when things got hard.”

I have to resist the urge to tighten my grip on her hand. She's choosing her principles over her safety, her integrity over her life. It's admirable and infuriating and completely in character for the woman I've come to know.

“You'll be dead,” I say flatly, the words carrying all the certainty of prophecy. “There won't be any part of you left.”

It's not a threat. It's a statement of fact. Francesco doesn't leave loose ends, and Elena has become the loosest end of all. Without protection, without someone watching her back, she won't survive the week.

But she pulls her hand away from mine, breaking the connection that was anchoring me to something resembling sanity. “I have to do this my way.”

There's no changing her mind now. I can see it in the set of her jaw, the steel in her spine that no amount of pain can bend. Elena Martinez has made her choice, and nothing I express or do will alter her course. She's going to follow this story wherever it leads, even if that place is her grave.

I know it. So, I do the only thing I can. I nod, accepting her decision even as every instinct screams against it. And I leave.

But not without insurance.

The hospital corridors seem longer on the way out, sterile and echoing with the sounds of human suffering. Sergey falls into step beside me, his presence anchoring itself at my shoulder. We don't speak until we're outside, standing in the humid Miami air that tastes of salt and exhaust.

Two days slip by before I’m parked outside Jackson Memorial with Sergey, watching the entrance through the tinted windows of my Mercedes.

“She's not safe,” I mutter, watching Amelia help Elena into the passenger seat of her car.

Sergey drives behind Amelia's Lexus, keeping a respectful but steady distance. The sleek sedan cuts through traffic with the instinct of someone who knows the city's rhythms, but I can see the tension in its movement. This slightly erratic pattern suggests its driver is on edge.

“She's stubborn,” Sergey replies, glancing at me from the corner of his eye. “Reminds me of someone else I know.”

I don't answer. I'm too focused on the traffic ahead, on the shape of the black SUV that has suddenly pulled into view, two cars behind Elena and Amelia.

The vehicle is nondescript, the type that blends into Miami traffic like water into water.

But something about its positioning sets off alarm bells in my brain.

“Tail?” I ask, my voice sharp with sudden tension.

Sergey is already watching, his trained eye picking up details that most people would miss. “Two men. Driver looks Italian. Passenger has a gun bulge at the waist. Definitely Bennato's men.”

Francesco isn't wasting time. He's already moving to finish what the car bomb started.

“Then stay on them,” I order, my hand moving instinctively to the gun nestled in its shoulder holster beneath my jacket.

Amelia's car makes a sharp turn onto Collins, accelerating with the sudden urgency of someone who's realized they're being followed. She's noticed them, which means Elena has too. The SUV speeds up in response, abandoning any pretense of subtlety.

My blood goes ice cold as I watch the dance of predator and prey play out in Miami traffic.