Page 19 of Bratva Baby

She’s beautiful. Razor-sharp cheekbones. Pale skin. Dark hair pinned back to show off her mouth, and her mouth is a problem all by itself. So are her eyes, grey-blue one second, silver the next, and giving away far less than the rest of her.

“Who are you waiting for?” I ask.

She takes another drink. “You ask too much for a man who walked over uninvited.”

Her comment pulls an easy laugh from me, which is rare. “And you dodge too much for a woman who hit that vodka like she needed the burn.”

I take the stool beside her and watch her fingers tighten on the glass. As I track that movement, I realize something.

She has enough beauty, but there’s… another quality about her. She looks like someone who’s lived close enough to wolves to know what teeth mean. The second our eyes locked across the room, I knew she was either trouble or temptation.

Tonight, I want both.

5

SOFIYA

Anton breaks the kiss and rises with that sinewy grace that turns my spine molten, and something in me clicks into place. The broker isn’t coming. Fate sent Reznikov instead, and I’m already too far down this path to pretend he’s not the danger I want tonight.

“I’m not staying here,” I tell him, voice seated on the edge of a blade. “If you want to talk, it isn’t happening in this bar.”

Heat flashes in his eyes. “Get up,” he murmurs. “We’ll finish this somewhere quieter.”

He slides a hand to the small of my back, guides me down the steps, and cuts through a secure corridor.

Outside, a black sedan crouches at the curb like a sleek animal. Anton opens the rear door for me, and the etiquette is almost mocking in its civility. A second later, he slides in beside me.

I sink into the leather seat, adrenaline roaring under my skin. The moment the door shuts, the noise of Prague’s night dissolves.

Up front, the driver gets in and pulls the car into motion. A dark partition slides up behind him, cutting us off completely.

The driver rounds the car and city lights fall blue-gold across Anton’s jaw, making him look like something sculpted out of shadow.

“You decided fast,” he says, voice like smoke sliding over slate. “Careful decisions are the things you Leonidovs pride yourselves on.”

I meet his gaze. “Maybe I chose to stop being careful.” I swallow hard, shoulders pressed into the leather, heart pounding. “It’s not going to be like this for me every night.”

His eyes sweep over me, appreciation dark and unhidden. “That’s a bad idea,” he says. It sounds like the most persuasive invitation of my life.

“Try and stop me.”

He exhales and his mouth curves with a flash of hunger. The car glides onward, but I’m too occupied to worry about where. Everything is pressure—the space between us, the cold knowledge that he’s Reznikov and I’m Leonidov. That he’s the enemy. That my body doesn’t care.

Anton stretches one arm along the back of the seat, that solid wrist brushing my shoulder. “Why are you really here, Sofiya?” His voice is low, threaded with rough interest. “No guards, no handler, no cousin in your shadow this time.”

I square my shoulders lightly. “I guess I wanted to do something stupid before…” I’m not able to finish the sentence.

He laughs under his breath. “You don’t think spending the night with me is stupid. Reckless, sure, but not stupid.”

The praise hits like a touch to my bare skin. “You can’t know that.”

“I do,” he says, and his eyes drop, taking me in piece by piece. “Look at you.”

His gaze lingers at my throat, then drifts lower, to the line of my collarbone, the curve just beneath it. He doesn’t rush it. “You think I didn’t notice?” he murmurs.

A shiver runs through me. “Notice what?”

His thumb comes up under my jaw, tilting my face just enough for him to see me better. “The way your neck tightens when you’re holding something back.” His eyes flick to my mouth. “The way your lips part when you forget yourself.”