Page 28 of Forced By the Obsessed Bratva (Yezhov Bratva #8)

The light from the study window cut across the dark lawn, and I stood behind the sheer curtain, watching her.

Zoella was out on the patio, barefoot, with a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. It was partially dark outside, with the surrounding lamps providing warm lighting. The men stationed outside took turns rotating who would stand farther off and closer to her.

But she seemed unbothered and just stayed there, staring out into the distance, with one hand cradling the small curve of her stomach.

After two months, her bump had become slightly more visible.

The moonlight kissed her skin, but even from here, I saw the shift in her shoulders, the tension she thought she hid so well.

I’d learned to read fear a long time ago, learned to see the way it silently crept in like smoke beneath a door.

Lately, I saw it in her eyes. That flicker of fear she tried to blink away whenever she looked at me. As if she didn’t want me to see it. As if I didn’t already know it was there.

Some days, she was quiet, keeping her distance, wrapped in her own thoughts. Other days, she wore her brave face, firing off sharp words with a lifted chin and having her usual fire in her tone.

But she didn’t hide it well enough because I could always tell. I’d seen too many people pretend they weren’t breaking to be fooled now.

And while watching her, I saw something I hadn’t expected.

I saw myself.

That same confusion. That same kind of hollow ache behind the eyes. Deep, unspeakable pain wrapped in silence.

On top of all that she was dealing with, she was pregnant, carrying our child, and still, I had no idea how to give her peace when I didn’t know what it felt like myself.

She probably thought I was buried in work at this hour and didn’t know I was watching.

A part of me wanted to go out there to keep her company or say something. Maybe ask if she needed another blanket for warmth. But I stayed behind the curtain because work needed to be done, and a bastard needed to be caught.

After one long, last look, I tightened my fists and turned away from the window, marching back to the desk. Files, papers, and photographs were strewn all over.

Grabbing a chair, I propped up my elbow and knitted my fingers under my chin. If I wanted to catch the traitor, then I had to start from somewhere.

Yulia’s death seemed like the best place to begin looking. After all, her death hadn’t made sense then, and it sure as hell didn’t now.

We might not have been close, but she was one of ours, and we always protected our own. Then came Zoella’s attack. The son of a bitch had crossed a line I didn’t even let my enemies flirt with.

And judging by the pattern and precision, it seemed like Yulia’s killer and Zoe’s attacker were one and the same.

I tapped my pen against the table, trying to map the threads and piece it all together.

Who must have had motive?

Who had the guts? In this business, there were snakes, and it would have been foolish to expect every single member of the brotherhood to operate with loyalty.

But these two attacks seemed less like ambition and more personal. And someone inside the Bratva was helping them.

That thought tightened in my chest more than I wanted to admit. I trusted few. I trusted them even less now.

I reached for the glass of vodka next to me, and instead of drinking right away, I stared into it like it might hold the answers I was looking for.

There was nothing there but my reflection. My own eyes, tired and furious.

“Who the fuck are you?” I muttered into the dark.

I wasn’t getting any reasonable response from a glass, so I absentmindedly turned back to the heap on the desk and began flipping through the papers and photographs. Anything that appeared useful to the investigation.

I grabbed the first set of photos, which were taken at Yulia and Rurik’s wedding.

In one of them, my brother had his glass raised with a crooked grin, and his wife smiled like the world was watching and she was trying not to run.

I remembered standing off to the side that day, watching it all with a drink in my hand.

The sun was too hot for my suit, and the tension was thick even in celebration.

Everyone seemed to be in good spirits, even though I knew better than most that they were merely pretending to have fun, a show of unity and power.

But in one of the piles of photographs, I saw the nerves behind Yulia’s eyes. I saw the way Rurik clutched her hand too tightly, like he was afraid she’d slip through his fingers. And then my eyes caught something in the background of one photo: a shadow of a figure, a shape I almost missed.

My fingers paused.

That wasn’t right.

Dropping the glass, I picked up more photographs to confirm the recurrence of that figure.

And there he was, hidden behind smiles and raised glasses, yet so obvious. Literally hidden in plain sight.

I stared down at the photo in my hand, and my pulse ticked steadily faster.

There, just at the edge of the frame, Isaak leaned in close to Yulia. It was too close. His lips were at her ear, and his hand, subtle but sure, hovered at the small of her back. She was smiling. It wasn’t too wide or obvious, but just enough to send a bad signal to men like me.

She smiled like she knew him. Like she trusted him.

I frowned, and my jaw clenched so tightly that it ached.

Another photo slipped free from the stack, as if the past was peeling itself open for me now, bit by bit. I gathered the rest, every single scrap I’d brushed off before, and laid them out like this jigsaw was finally starting to make sense.

Then, I remembered at the wedding, there had been a waiter’s offhand comment I hadn’t paid attention to at the time, something about the way he looked at her.

Now that I pondered it, it was unlikely that the “he” in question was my brother. Rurik barely looked at anyone that way. He was the living definition of stone-cold with a sprinkle of humor, sometimes.

To him, women were more of objects and tools, a means to an end, rather than actual human beings. So, it couldn’t be him.

Judging by the amount of evidence pouring in from different directions, the bigger picture was beginning to become much clearer.

I began searching through the photographs when another piece of information came to light. More like a flashback of one time the entire house noticed a very expensive bracelet on Yulia’s wrist.

I specifically asked her, and she mentioned that Isaak had given it to her for her birthday. We’d thought nothing of it because…we were family?

And family didn’t cross lines. You could be the great-great-great Yezhov, and you’d still be held accountable for any stupid action you took.

That was what I thought.

But now all I could see were blurred lines, smudged and smeared in places I hadn’t looked closely enough.

And to crown it all, on the night of her funeral, I now understood that the rawness in Isaak’s eyes wasn’t grief.

Or it could be.

That strange, silent tension in his face, that clenched jaw, the way he couldn’t meet mine or Rurik’s eyes—it was all guilt.

I sat back in the chair, ignoring the old leather creaking beneath me as my fingers tapped the desk.

I had questions, and I didn’t care if I had to rip a heart out or cut a tongue; someone was certainly going to fucking answer.

And if it was Isaak who had to pay with blood, then so be it.