Page 62 of Forced By the Bratva

“Bullshit.”

I leaned back in my chair.

“You’ve barely known her for what, a few weeks?” Ivan straightened, arms crossing again. “I’ve watched you for thirty-eight years, brother. I know exactly what attachment does to judgment.

I locked my jaw.

“I’ve seen it take down men stronger than you. It starts exactly like this. Trust before it’s earned. Access before it’s verified. By the time anyone notices the damage, it’s already done.”

“She’s not like that.”

“You don’t know for sure!” His voice rose slightly higher.

The warehouse felt smaller than it should have. The metal walls held the silence between us longer than either of us wanted to break it.

“This woman will ruin you, Ilya,” Ivan said quietly, his words stinging more than they should. “Not because she means to, but because attachment like this doesn’t need intention to be dangerous. It just needs time.”

I looked at him and didn’t argue.

Some part of me had already been turning the same thought over for days. Hearing him say it out loud didn’t scare me the way it should have. It only confirmed something I’d already accepted somewhere along the way, quietly, without deciding to.

“She already has,” I said.

Ivan went still.

“What?”

“You said she’ll ruin me.” I met his eyes, my gaze unwavering. “She already has. Whatever this is, it’s not temporary. It’s not something that burns out in a few months. It’s already done.”

He stared at me for a long time. Longer than he usually lets silence stretch between us. Ivan studied me for a moment, like he was looking for the angle that made sense of what he was seeing.

“You understand what that means,” he said eventually. “For you. For this family.”

Silence.

“Do you understand that you’ve just become the biggest vulnerability in this organization?” His voice was quieter now. Almost tired. “I wish you good luck, brother.”

I didn’t say anything else.

He gathered the shipment manifests off the table and folded them back into the folder like the meeting had gone exactly as planned. Like we’d actually talked about what the cover story claimed we would.

“Find out who’s behind the ledgers,” he said, heading for the door. “Quickly. Before whoever it is realizes she’s found them too.”

I gave a curt nod.

He paused at the door and looked back once more.

“For what it’s worth,” he said, “I hope you’re right about her. Because if you’re not, there won’t be a version of this that ends well for either of you.”

He left without waiting for an answer.

I sat alone in the warehouse a long time after that, turning his words over and over again in my head. I still didn’t have an answer that made any of it feel less true.

She had ruined me.

Chapter 21 – Iris

The closer I drew to Ilya whenever we were alone, the more unsettling his duality became publicly.