Page 30 of Bratva Stalker Kidnaps His Bride

This was a net, and we have been running through the first layer of it without understanding that it had a second.

The car stops.

I push open the door, moving along the car’s exterior with my shoulder nearly grazing the door panel, using the vehicle’s mass as cover. The air is sharp and smells of engine exhaust and something acrid.

The security detail from the second vehicle has fanned out around us, establishing a perimeter around me.

My eyes run the street—exits, obstacles, the angles of incoming fire that I can read from the directions the detail is facing—three or four active shooters on the east side, at least two from the vehicles ahead.

Fuck.

The calculation is survivable if the detail holds, which requires them to have enough bodies and enough ammunition to hold it, which I’m not sure of.

That is when I see Timur.

He is standing at the edge of the containment—not in it, not behind cover the way the other operatives are, not moving with the slightest urgency.

Positioned near the second vehicle’s rear corner, Timur Sokolov stands with his hands at his sides and his expression blank while the men around him move and react.

His eyes rove over everything—not watching for threats…

Almost like he’s enjoying a play.

For one fraction of a second they find me, and before I can read his face anymore, a searing pain from the top of my left arm shocks my brain.

A gasp tears out of my throat, as my neck jerks to look at it—a bullet grazed by, searing off the skin of my upper arm. If it had only been slightly more to the right, I would’ve been done for.

My legs thump against the concrete as I pump them, trying to breathe through the pain. Greger’s hand appears on my other arm, moving me in the direction of the extraction point he has identified.

I don’t clearly recall how he gets me into a car and where or how we drive off. I remember a bone-numbing cold that takes over as the pain from the wound becomes a static ache instead of a stabbing hurt.

I don’t know how long we travel for before the penthouse arrives.

Timur’s face arrives behind my eyes before anything else does.

The attacks tonight clearly had a source. The containment vehicles had been pre-positioned, which means the route had been communicated to someone outside the detail who then communicated it forward.

The danger I have been running from is real, and it might not be just outside.

Chapter 10 - Mikhail

Extraction complete. Package returned. Medic on site.

Greger’s communication came through three minutes ahead of her arrival—clipped and precise.

There’s a pressure in my skull that’s been building ever since Gregor used that fucking word.

Medic.

The medic is efficient and thorough and exits the room before I enter it.

She is sitting on the edge of the couch when I see her.

The dress from the morning is gone—she’s in the spare clothing she keeps in the room I designated as hers, practical and dark. Her left arm is dressed at the upper bicep, clean white bandaging against her olive skin, and she is holding a glass of water in both hands that tremble harshly.

Pools of brown look up at me when I enter.

I cross the room without speaking a word, sitting on the low table in front of her. The half-empty glass of water nearly topples over with the motion.