Page 62 of Innocent Prey of the Bratva

“Kaz, please! Please, I don’t like this. You can’t keep me safe like this—this isn’t safety. This is a cage!”

Her voice cracks, and it nearly brings me to my knees.

“Please…I’m begging you.”

I press my palm to the wall, needing the cold to keep me steady. But nothing can ground me when her voice sounds like that. Like she’s breaking.

And I’m the one doing the breaking.

I squeeze my eyes shut, and the darkness ushers in a memory I’ve never thought about until now.

I was fifteen. Still young. Still learning what it meant to lead. To rule. Lukin brought me to the warehouse after midnight. Said there was something I needed to see.

A man knelt on the floor, trembling. Blood at the corner of his mouth. He was someone I knew. Someone who had once ruffled my hair when I walked past. One of Father’s closest advisors.

He had betrayed us.

Lukin didn’t yell. Didn’t threaten. He simply pulled the trigger.

Cold. Unflinching.

When the body dropped, Lukin looked at me with that calm, emotionless face and said:

“Love, Kazimir…is one of the most beautiful things, but it’s also the surest way to get buried. You let someone close enough to own your heart, they’ll own your downfall too. So you don’t love recklessly. You lead. You protect the bratva, even from yourself.”

I nodded like I understood.

I didn’t. Not then.

But I understand now.

I slide down against the wall, my hands braced on my knees. My lungs burn with something I don’t recognize at first.

Fear.

Not for me.

For her.

For Violet, who is screaming behind reinforced walls. For Violet, who kissed my forehead earlier like it was nothing. Like I hadn’t destroyed her world and rebuilt it in my image.

I thought I could control it.

I thought if I kept her here—mine—then I’d be safe. That she’d be safe.

But the pounding in my chest says something else.

Iloveher.

I loveher.

And it hits me like a fucking brick. Like a bullet to the ribs. Like a betrayal I never saw coming.

I stare ahead, numb, shaking.

Because if I love her—if Lukin was right—then I’ve already sealed her fate, and it wasn’t good. Just as I push myself up to my feet—gunfire. The sound rips through the estate like a scream—sharp, brutal, close.

Then another shot. Then three more.