Page 89 of The Bratva Betrayal

She bows her head and mutters, “What for then?”

"Gambling. Fourteen months of it. Manifold bought the debt eight months ago and has been sitting on it." Her eyes widen a little. “That's why Misha said yes so fast. Five million from your father clears what he owes and leaves him two million to keep."

“And did your little bro ask you to bail him out?”

“No. He hasn't told anyone."

“Then you're here to handle Manifold," she says, and I don't have to confirm it. "If Manifold is gone, the debt is gone.”

I don’t answer.

“I’m telling you to call the shit off when I’m done. If the debt is gone, Misha has no reason to go through with the marriage."

She holds my gaze. "Misha has to be the one to call it off. Benedikt agreed to it. It can't just disappear without a reason."

"Misha calling it off because his girlfriend caught him with someone else is a clean reason," I tell her. "Benedikt won't push back on that. Even he has limits on what he'll ask a woman to accept."

"I’d need proof."

"It wouldn't be hard to find."

“No,” she agrees quietly. “It wouldn’t. But even with proof, my father won’t let me be the one to end this. Misha would still have to.”

“You’re a smart girl, right? You’ll figure it out.”

“Oh, we will,” she claims. “And you’re going to help me.”

I cock my head to the side. “Excuse me? I’m not helping you do⁠—”

“Fuck me.”

My cock comes to attention at those two words.

She looks back with the steady calm of a woman who has played a card she's been holding and has no intention of taking it back.

And the worst part, the genuinely destabilizing part, is that she's not performing it.

There's no manipulation in her face right now, no angle I can identify and neutralize.

There's just Cady, chin up, blue eyes level, asking me for the one thing I told myself I wasn't going to give her.

Every sensible thought I have lines up in a neat row.

She is my brother's.

I am Benedikt Volkov's right-hand man, and I have never let something personal compromise something operational, and I won’t start now.

“Here,” she whispers, her voice sweet now and soft, before her fingers dip underneath the waistband of my slacks. “This might work.”

The moment her fingertips brush against the skin of my lower belly, the last shred of my resolve snaps.

I’m frozen by her touch. My breath hitches in my throat.

Cady grips my biceps and spins me around against the wall she just occupied.

Then she sinks to her knees on the cold floor of the storage closet, the scent of dust and old cardboard swirling around us, but all I can smell is her.

She undoes my belt and slides the zipper down, the sound loud and jarring in the oppressive silence of the small room.