Page 5 of Bratva King

She checked the windows, then drew the faded curtains. With that task done, Natalia finally allowed herself to breathe. The tiny flat was barely furnished. It had a battered sofa, stained coffee table, and a mattress on the floor.

Her duffel bag sat exactly where she'd left it. Her rifle case rested beneath the bed. Everything was left untouched. Natalia shrugged out of her jacket and tossed it onto the sofa before dragging a hand down her face.

She should have been planning her next move.

"You missed on purpose." Alexei's voice echoed through her head with infuriating clarity, low and certain. He didn’t sound accusatory or angry, but as if he'd simply stated a fact.

Natalia squeezed her eyes shut. She could still feel how close he'd been. Natalia could still smell his expensive cologne mixed with gunpowder. They stood near enough that she noticed the faint shadow of stubble along his jaw, and saw those impossibly cold blue eyes that hadn't carried fear.

Her mind slipped somewhere else, to ten years earlier. She could still remember the glass exploding around her. The deafening crash still lived inside her bones. She remembered crawling across the floor on trembling hands.

Her palms slid through shattered glass, the sharp edges slicing into her skin. Tiny cuts opened along her forearms, and blood dripped onto the polished floor.

Someone screamed, but she couldn't remember who. Maybe her mother, or her. The room had become smoke and broken furniture. She'd been too terrified to stand, and too young to understand why men with guns had invaded her home.

Then, strong arms wrapped around her small, trembling body. He held so carefully, like a treasure that would break. Natalia remembered being lifted effortlessly against a warm chest. She'd buried her face there without thinking, sobbing uncontrollably. His heartbeat was so strong, and she felt incredibly safe.

A boy's voice whispered into her ear. "It's okay."

His breathing had been uneven from running, but he sounded so confident. "You're safe now."

She remembered clutching his shirt with bloodied fingers and refusing to let go. He had carried her through the wreckage while bullets echoed somewhere outside. She never learned why he'd saved her, but Natalia never forgot his face and those blue eyes.

Natalia's eyes snapped open in the present.

"No." The whispered word sounded harsher than she'd intended.

She yanked both sleeves down instinctively until they covered her wrists. The movement exposed pale white scars that stretched like thin spiderwebs across both forearms before disappearing beneath the fabric again.

They were old wounds and completely healed, and yet every time she looked at them, she remembered the terrified little girl she'd once been. She rubbed at one scar through the sleeve.

Alexei Volkov. The teenage boy who had carried her to safety. The same boy who'd grown into the city's most feared Bratva King. A man whose name inspired whispered conversations, and whose enemies vanished overnight. His reputation was soaked in blood.

He was also her target tonight. The irony tasted bitter. Had he recognized her? No, it was impossible. Back then, she’d been thirteen, covered in blood and terrified. He'd probably met dozens of people over the years. She should have been just another forgotten face.

So why had he looked at her like he'd almost remembered? Her thoughts shattered as her phone vibrated violently across the coffee table. Natalia froze, and the screen lit the dim room. It was an unknown number, except she knew who was calling her.

She recognized the encrypted line immediately, and her stomach sank. Of course, her employer had eyes everywhere. Someone had probably already reported that Alexei Volkov was still breathing. She stared at the screen until the ringing almost stopped.

After taking several deep breaths, she answered. “It’s me.”

"I assume," he said, "there is an explanation as to why Alexei Volkov is still alive?”

Her client kept his tone cold and quiet. It was the kind of voice that never needed to shout to scare people. Natalia walked to the window and peeked through a gap in the curtains. She only saw an empty street.

“Yes,” Natalia answered.

There was momentary silence on the other end.

“I’m still waiting for an explanation,” he said.

"I failed,” she said.

Another pause, and this one was heavier.

"You failed," he repeated.

She kept her voice level. "Volkov escaped."