Page 29 of Hostage of the Russian (Nikolai Bratva Brides #7)

Bullets. Azriel’s chest tightened, panic flooding her system and washing away the numbness that had been there. Kostya was hurt. While she’d been sitting at her desk planning dinner invitations and celebrating her promotion, he’d been bleeding somewhere.

“Those wounds need stitches, not the field dressing you’re probably using,” Viktor continued, his tone shifting from anger to concern. “And don’t think we didn’t notice you favoring your left side when you walked out of that warehouse.”

“I’m fine,” Kostya replied, but there was something strained in his voice that suggested otherwise. Something tight with pain that he was trying to hide even from his brothers.

“Where the hell are you anyway?” Viktor’s voice now carried the tinny quality of a phone call. “The doctor said you left the clinic against his orders.”

The clinic. Azriel’s mind immediately jumped to the private medical facility where she’d been treated after the campus shooting.

Discreet, expensive, equipped to handle injuries that couldn’t be explained to regular hospitals.

If Kostya had been there, the wounds were serious enough to require professional medical attention.

“I’m fine,” Kostya repeated. “Just needed to handle some things at the office.”

“You need to get back to the clinic,” Fedya said, his voice carrying the kind of authority that usually made people jump to obey. “Those wounds need proper monitoring, and you’re being an ass about the pain medication.”

“I said I’m fine.”

Azriel could picture him clearly, sitting behind his desk with perfect posture despite whatever injuries he was hiding.

Probably in one of his expensive suits, tie perfectly knotted, giving no outward sign that anything was wrong.

He’d done the same thing after the warehouse incident last month, walking into the house like nothing had happened despite the bruises she’d glimpsed when he thought she wasn’t looking.

“And I’m saying you’re full of shit.” Viktor’s voice grew sharper. “Dr. Petrov wants you under observation for at least another twelve hours. The bullet near your shoulder came too close to major arteries.”

Major arteries. Azriel bit down on her knuckle to keep from making a sound. Kostya could have died. Could have bled out in some warehouse while confronting her father, and she would have spent the evening wondering why he was late for dinner.

The thought made her stomach churn. She’d been so focused on maintaining professional boundaries, on proving she could be independent and capable, that she’d missed the signs.

Had he been planning this for days? Weeks?

Had he been sitting across from her at breakfast, making casual conversation about her work while plotting to kill her father?

“I have work to do,” Kostya said, and she could hear the exhaustion beneath the stubborn determination.

“The work can wait,” Fedya replied. “Your wife finding out you got shot handling her psychotic father? That can’t wait. She’s going to lose her mind when she realizes you didn’t tell her.”

Your wife. The words hit differently now, carrying weight they’d never held before. Not just a legal arrangement or a business partnership, but something real. Something that came with responsibilities and expectations that she was still learning to navigate.

“She doesn’t need to know about Danny. Not yet.”

The casual way he said it, like her father’s death was just another business transaction to be scheduled and managed, sent a spike of fury through her chest. He’d killed her father and decided she didn’t need to know, like she was a child who couldn’t handle adult conversations, or a business partner who only needed to be informed on a need-to-know basis.

“She’s going to find out eventually,” Viktor said, voicing the thoughts racing through her head. “And when she does, she’s going to be pissed that you handled it alone. Especially after she specifically asked you not to shut her out of Bratva business.”

Had she said that? Azriel tried to remember, but her thoughts felt scattered, fragmented.

She remembered conversations about honesty, about trust, about not wanting to be protected from the realities of the world she’d married into.

But those had been abstract discussions, theoretical boundaries.

This was her father. Her past. The monster who’d shaped her into the woman Kostya had fallen in love with.

“The Kozlov situation needs to be contained,” Kostya said, deflecting from the personal to the professional. “Danny’s betrayal runs deeper than we thought. He wasn’t just skimming money, he was feeding them information about our operations.”

Information. Of course her father had been playing both sides. Danny Hartford had never met a situation he couldn’t make worse by being greedy and stupid. The knowledge should have made her angrier, should have justified whatever Kostya had done to him.

Instead, it just made her tired. Bone-deep weary in a way that had nothing to do with the long day at the office. Her father had been exactly what she’d always known him to be, right up until the end. A selfish man who destroyed everything he touched.

“Which is exactly why you should have waited for backup,” Fedya said, his voice carrying the patient tone he used when explaining obvious things to stubborn people. “Now they know we’re onto them, and they’re scrambling to cover their tracks.”

“I don’t give a damn about their scrambling.”

“You will when they start retaliating against our legitimate businesses,” Viktor snapped. “Your need for revenge just put every Nikolai operation at risk.”

Revenge. The word hit Azriel like a slap, cutting through her exhaustion and replacing it with something sharper. He’d killed her father for revenge, not justice. Not because Danny Hartford was an immediate threat to their family or their business, but because Kostya had wanted him to suffer.

The rational part of her mind whispered that her father had deserved whatever he got.

Danny Hartford had been a monster long before he’d gotten involved with the Bratva.

He’d made her childhood a nightmare of neglect and casual cruelty, leaving her to fend for herself while he chased get-rich-quick schemes and bottle after bottle of cheap whiskey.

He’d sold her like property to settle his debts, caring more about saving his own skin than protecting the daughter he’d never wanted.

But the irrational part, the part that still remembered being five years old and waiting by the window for a father who never came home, felt something twist painfully in her chest. Some stupid, stubborn piece of her that had never stopped hoping he might change, might become the parent she’d needed him to be.

And underneath both reactions was a fury so pure it surprised her.

Not at Kostya for killing Danny, but at him for doing it alone.

For taking bullets that could have killed him.

For sitting in his office, acting like nothing had happened while she planned dinner dates and worried about professional boundaries.

How long had he been planning this? How many conversations had they shared where he’d been thinking about her father’s death? How many times had he kissed her goodnight while mentally preparing to commit murder?

“Fine,” Kostya said finally, his voice heavy with reluctant agreement. “I’ll go back to the clinic. But I want hourly updates on the Kozlov situation.”

“Done,” Viktor said. “And Kostya? Next time you decide to go on a solo revenge mission, remember that some of us actually give a shit if you come home in one piece.”

The line went dead, leaving the office in silence. Azriel heard the scrape of a chair against marble, the soft curse as Kostya presumably stood up. She imagined him moving carefully, trying not to aggravate whatever injuries he was hiding beneath his perfectly pressed suit.

She gathered the papers more carefully this time, using the mundane task to steady herself and organize her racing thoughts. Her father was dead. Kostya was hurt. And he’d planned to hide both facts from her, like she was too fragile to handle the truth about her own life.

The fury was winning now, burning away the shock and the complicated grief.

She’d spent months learning to trust him, to believe that their marriage had become something real and equal.

But he’d made decisions about her family, her past, her future, without consulting her.

He’d risked his life for revenge she’d never asked for, then planned to hide the consequences like she was a child who couldn’t handle adult realities.

She stood slowly, smoothing down her skirt and checking that her expression was composed.

Professional mask firmly in place, emotions locked away where they couldn’t betray her.

It was a skill she’d learned early, hiding her feelings from a father who used them against her.

She’d gotten better at it over the years, perfecting the art of looking calm while her world crumbled around her.

The irony wasn’t lost on her. She was using survival skills her father had taught her to deal with the aftermath of his death.

Azriel turned and walked back down the hallway, her heels clicking with purpose now instead of nervous energy. She had a destination, a plan forming in her mind with crystalline clarity. No more waiting, no more professional boundaries, no more being protected from her own life.

The elevator ride to the parking garage felt endless.

She kept her breathing steady, her hands folded neatly in front of her, the picture of professional calm.

Other employees nodded politely as they passed, probably assuming she was heading home after another long day at the office.

If only they knew she was really going to confront her husband about murdering her father.

It wasn’t until she was alone in her car that she let the mask slip, her carefully controlled expression cracking as the full weight of the situation hit her. Her hands shook as she gripped the steering wheel, knuckles white against the leather.

Danny Hartford was dead. The man who’d terrorized her childhood, who’d sold her to pay his debts, who’d never shown her a moment of genuine affection in twenty-one years of life.

She should feel relief, or satisfaction, or at least some sense of closure.

Instead, she felt empty. Hollowed out in a way that had nothing to do with grief and everything to do with finality.

There would be no reconciliation now. No chance for him to become the father she’d always hoped he might be, no opportunity for closure or understanding. Just death, violent and final, delivered by the man she loved.

Azriel started the engine, her movements mechanical and precise.

The private clinic wasn’t far, maybe fifteen minutes if traffic cooperated.

She’d been there before, back when she’d been shot during that campus attack.

She remembered the discreet entrance, which looked like any other medical building from the outside, while hiding state-of-the-art equipment and doctors who asked no questions about unusual injuries.

She pulled out of the parking garage and into the late afternoon traffic, her mind spinning with questions she wasn’t sure she wanted answered.

How badly was he hurt? Why had he gone after her father alone when he had brothers who would have helped him?

And why, despite everything Danny Hartford had done to her, did some small part of her feel hollow at the news of his death?

The radio was playing something soft and innocuous, but she turned it off, needing silence to think. The city moved past her windows in a blur of glass and steel, people going about their normal lives while hers shifted fundamentally once again.

She’d thought the hard part was over. The kidnapping, the forced marriage, and the gradual transformation from victim to willing participant.

She’d thought they’d found their rhythm, built something real and lasting from the wreckage of their violent beginning.

But now she realized they were still figuring out what their marriage meant, still learning how to be partners instead of captor and captive.

The traffic light ahead turned red, and she drummed her fingers against the steering wheel impatiently.

Rush hour was starting, office workers streaming out of buildings and into cars, everyone eager to get home to their families.

Normal people with normal problems, worrying about dinner plans and weekend errands instead of dead fathers and wounded husbands.

She’d planned to invite him to dinner tonight, to celebrate her raise and maybe steal a few minutes of normalcy between them.

The reservation she’d tentatively made at that Italian place seemed laughably naive now.

What was she supposed to do, congratulate him on successfully committing murder?

Ask him how he was feeling about avenging her honor while they shared breadsticks?

The light turned green, and she pressed the accelerator harder than necessary, earning an annoyed honk from the car behind her.

She didn’t care. Whatever conversation awaited her at the clinic, she was done being the protected wife who only learned about important events after they had passed.

Done being managed like a fragile asset instead of being treated like an equal partner.

Kostya was about to learn that the woman he’d married was stronger than he’d given her credit for.

Strong enough to handle the truth about her father, strong enough to face the realities of their world, strong enough to be furious with him for nearly getting himself killed without consulting her first.

The clinic came into view, its bland exterior hiding the sophisticated medical facility within.

She’d been here as a patient, scared and hurt and dependent on others to make decisions for her.

This time, she was here as a wife demanding answers from the man who’d promised to share his life with her.

Even if she wasn’t entirely sure she was ready for whatever those answers might reveal.