Page 12 of The Bratva’s Captive Flame

If she dies tonight, the leverage dies with her and the whole plan turns to smoke. That's reason enough on its own to keep her behind me. There's another reason underneath that one nudging at my chest. Being that close to her and feeling the desire rolling off her body in my direction awakened something inside me.

She's quiet a beat, running her hands over the front of the vest. Then she lifts her eyes back to mine, and there's that fire in them, the one that's been getting harder to look away from since the first night.

"I'll do my part," she says quietly. I feel my men watching as she steps in a little, closing some of the space. "But understand something…" She's repeating what I've said to her, trying to make it sound intimidating, but I have to fight back a smile. "When this is over and my father's safe, you're going to take that formula he's spent his whole life perfecting and find your own chemist to use it. You won't need him."

The vein in her temple is throbbing. I can tell she's trying so hard to stand up to me, and I have to give her props. Men twice her size wouldn't look me in the eye and speak to me like this.

But I almost laugh. "You really don't give up," I say, cracking into a smirk. I really like her fire, and if I had time to goad her into getting angry and worked up just so I could see her go off again, I would. But we're on a schedule.

"No. I don't." She holds my eyes. "He's done being someone's prisoner."

"You're not in a position to make deals," I remind her as I take a large vest off the rack and strap it on. My eyes never leave hers, and now I’m starting to notice the little notes of gold in her hazel-green eyes. It's mesmerizing and I'd lose myself if I weren’t acutely aware that I'm being watched.

"And yet here I am, making one." A corner of her mouth lifts in a dare. "You can take it or leave it, but I'm telling you now so you can't say later that I didn't."

This small, bruised woman climbed into a box to save her father and now stands in front of me drawing lines I have no intention of honoring. God, that's hot. She'd make a fierce enemy if she had power and resources. And that same sensation of needing to dominate her twists in my chest as she lifts her chin again. It's a distraction and it's the last thing I need an hour before I cross a border to take a man at gunpoint.

"Take her back up," I tell the guards, turning away toward the rifles before she can read what's on my face. "Leave the vest on her. She wears it from now until we're home."

My guards escort her out and she stays quiet as they go, but when she's gone, I let out a slow breath and rest both hands on the steel table. She is so goddamn infuriating and sexy at the same time. It has my pulse racing before we've even set out to take Octavio. There's a job to do tonight, and it's a good one, the kind that changes everything for the family if I do it right.

I pull a rifle from the rack and check the action, then head back up the stairs to find Mishka because it's time to do final checks before heading out. In thirty minutes, we'll be on a plane, and in less than two hours, we'll be breaching the Solano compound. That's what I have to focus on—not a woman with a hot body.

"Load up," I tell him when I find him in the hall. "We leave in ninety minutes. I want us sitting outside that compound before Solano's people have finished their dinner, and I want this done before midnight."

He nods and goes to gather the men while I stand in the hallway a moment longer, listening to the house come alive. Tonight, we take the chemist and the Bratva stops paying Solano a single ruble more. I just have to keep one stubborn girl alive long enough to make it happen.

Then I can investigate what strange chemistry is happening between us.

9

ISABELA

The jet levels off and the seatbelt light goes off, but I stay put in my seat. Demin's men are in the back resting, prepping for the raid, but there's no way I could sleep. He made me rest all day long and even then, I was too anxious. All I did was toss and turn.

The idea of going back to that compound is making me a nervous wreck. I've seen the guns those men carry around on a normal day. I can't imagine that place being lit up with even heavier weaponry.

Demin, however, appears to be as calm as can be. He sits next to me with his head back and his eyes shut, though I know he's not sleeping. He's probably running the game plan through his head on repeat so he knows it by heart. That's what I'd be doing if I were in charge.

But he looks fatigued. There are fine lines around his eyes I'm just now noticing. They're not wrinkles, though he has a few of those too at his age. But these are different. They're worry lines and lack of sleep. As much as I have riding on this rescue, I know he has a lot too, which is why it boggles my mind that he hasn't just gotten rid of the biggest stressor, which is me.

"Why haven't you just killed me?"

He looks up slowly, not startled, more like he's been expecting me to break the silence at some point. "Is that what you'd prefer?" His eyes blink slowly as he focuses on my face. I can see that he might have been ready to drift off.

"I'm serious." I lean forward and tug at this stupid vest. It's scratchy and uncomfortable. "You want my father. You don't need me to get him. You could've put a bullet in me the night you opened that crate, shipped my body back to Solano with a note, walked into that compound with a gun against Papa's head. So why am I still breathing?"

The familiar draw of chemistry tugs at my chest. There's this constant current of electricity between us now, one I don't even mind. It's like a game we're playing—who can get the closest to snapping without really breaking down? I'll be honest. I'd have lost last time. My God, did I want him to kiss me.

Who would have ever thought I'd ship myself to a foreigner and then find myself with a man so goddamn alluring? Yet here I am, wondering how to make the intensity in this magnetism escalate. I love that feeling of my pulse racing when I think I'm getting to him—be it annoyance, anger, or attraction. His response does something to me.

"Leverage," he says. "I told you that already."

"A photograph of my body would be leverage. You don't need me alive to threaten him with me." I hold his gaze, refusing to be the one who looks away. "So either there's a reason, or…"

There's a flicker of a response in his gaze but he looks away, checking the time on his phone before he speaks, this time not looking at me. "You ask a lot of questions for someone in the position you're in." I'd swear on my mother's grave, he feels the pull. With three hours to ourselves here, I'd love to get to know just how much of an effect I have on him.

"It's a long flight," I say, turning toward the window. Lights below flicker, obscured now and then by clouds, and when I turn back, his mouth is twitching. He's getting off on this too, which only encourages me to push harder. But he speaks before I can get the chance to.