Page 10 of Forced By the Bratva

My heart skipped a beat as I looked up into those cold eyes staring down at me.

“Answer me.” He didn’t raise his voice.

I swallowed, trying to pull myself free from his grip. “Yes.”

“That’s oddly vague. Explain.”

A beat.

“I copied a few files. For proof.”

“And?”

“And I reported it to my supervisor.”

“What did you tell him?”

Another pause.

“Nothing specific. Just the inconsistencies I found. That’s all. I promise.” My lips were quivering in fear, and my legs were shaking beneath me.

He didn’t say anything else; instead, he let go of my wrist, his imposing frame towering over me.

And that was when the pieces I’d been avoiding all night finally slid into place, one after another, too fast to stop.

The shell corporations. The businessman who kept paying bills eleven days after his own funeral. The wiped employee files. Asset removal, six times, next to names, dates, and locations.

Whoever this man was, he was definitely connected to these crimes.

“You’re gonna kill me, aren’t you?” I asked before I could stop myself. “Like you killed the man from Italy?”

His expression remained unchanged, his eyes never leaving mine. One of his hands rose, slow and deliberate, stopping just short of my throat, close enough that I felt the warmth of his skin without his touch.

I stared at that hand and, with total clarity, understood that if he wanted to close the distance the rest of the way, there was nothing in this apartment or in me that could stop him.

I waited for it. My whole body braced for it.

It didn’t come.

His hand hovered there a second longer, then dropped back to his side as if he’d caught himself doing something he hadn’t decided to do.

He didn’t move. He stayed exactly where he was, close enough that I could clearly see the scar by his jaw, close enough to be intoxicated by the scent of his cologne.

He studied my face as if deciding what to do with me.

“Careful,” he said quietly. “Questions like that get people killed.”

My voice came out smaller than I’d meant it to. “Is that a threat?”

He didn’t answer. Instead, he curled his lips into a mischievous grin.

Chapter 4 – Ilya

The question of whether I was going to kill her, as I’d killed the businessman from Italy, came as a shock to me. It shouldn’t have. But it did.

For someone who claimed she’d only done her job and reported inconsistencies to her supervisor, she knew something that was supposed to be a secret.

Obviously, she didn’t just download the files; she also downloaded the information into her brain. I didn’t step away from her, and I didn’t step any closer either.