Unveiled (Bratva Kings #3)

Chapter 1

SEMYON

I shake my head and exit the warehouse, the relentless bite of a Moscow winter hitting me. I pull my coat tighter and check my watch.

Behind me, I hear the telltale sounds of Rodion cleaning up the mess I left—the heavy scrape of a body being dragged across the floor, the dull thump of a weapon hitting the ground, and his unmistakable carefree whistling. Like one of the fucking seven dwarfs.

Only my brother would whistle while running the cleanup crew.

But he’s impeccable, reliable, and takes pride in what he does.

I wasn’t planning on delivering an ass-kicking right before the huge benefit I’m supposed to attend, but here we are .

Sliding into the driver’s seat, I flip down the mirror to check myself. My hands are clean, my suit is immaculate, and not a speck of blood mars the fabric. Good.

My phone buzzes, the ringtone unmistakably Rafail’s. “Where the fuck are you?”

“Took longer than I thought.” My jaw tightens as I start the engine. The dickhead had more fight in him than I expected, and I wouldn’t let Rodion intervene. I fight my own battles.

“How’d it go?”

“As good as can be expected. The job’s done.” I blow out a breath and glance at the time. “Got ten minutes to show up fashionably late.”

“Good.” There’s a pause. Too long. I know immediately something’s wrong. He didn’t call to make sure I handled a job. Rafail knows better than that.

“Rafail. What is it?”

My older brother and I are tight and have been since he became our legal guardian after our parents’ deaths. He’s ruled our family with the proverbial iron fist, and as second-oldest, I’m his right-hand man. We don’t waste words or time explaining things to each other.

“I’ve got bad news.”

In the background, I hear Polina, his wife, murmuring in her low, soothing voice. She whispers something in Russian, and Rafail mutters back before speaking to me again.

I grit my teeth. I hate showing up late to anything. I plug the address into the GPS and throw the car into reverse. Rodion will get himself there.

When Rafail doesn’t tell me right away, my patience begins to wane. “You wanna tell me, or do you and Polina need to have a little pillow talk first?”

“Semyon,” Rafail says warningly. He’d take any shit I’d throw at him, but bring his wife into it, and he gets his hackles up. Fair.

I put the car into drive and ease onto the road before gunning the engine. “I just kicked someone’s teeth in while making sure I didn’t get any blood on this fucking white shirt, Rafail. Patience? Fresh out.”

Rafail sighs heavily on the other end of the line. “Elizar Borozov was sighted on a plane heading to Costa Rica twelve hours ago. He fucked you over. We’ve had two shipments ambushed and our backup safe house exposed because of him.”

I grip the wheel tighter, a haze of red clouding my vision. Eli. My fucking friend. The kid I grew up with. The one I trusted. Gone, betraying us in the process.

“Are we positive he left?” My best friend has as many enemies as I do.

“Yes.”

I glance at the GPS. Ten minutes out. My voice drops, cold and venomous. “So I’m boarding a plane to Costa Rica tonight.”

I’m already mentally combing the streets.

“No. I wanted to talk to you first.”

“What’s there to talk about? Eli was supposed to give us the details on the shipment and the harbor security leak in exchange for pardoning his fucking debt. That was literally all he fucking had to do to keep him off our shitlist. And now you’re telling me he’s gone? Vanished, still owing us four mil?”

This one’s personal.

We spent every afternoon by the creek in Zalivka, the city outside of Moscow where we both grew up, throwing rocks and climbing trees, swearing that nothing would ever come between us.

He was the one I cried to when my parents died. As teens, we bought each other condoms and borrowed each other’s weapons. We shot weapons by the creek until Rafail caught us and kicked both our asses. We didn’t stop—we just got more discreet.

But the liquor came too easily. The lies were harder to detect. I should’ve seen it all coming.

I shoot Eli a text, watching the message hang before failing to deliver.

After all these years, after everything we’ve been through, he fucking betrayed me. All of us.

As if his family can fucking afford it.

“The problem’s bigger than that, Semyon.” My pulse beats hard and fast. I blow out a breath as he explains. “Eli’s father couldn’t pay back the Irish, so he put up his daughter as collateral. If the Irish take her and the bakery, they get access to the harbor—dangerous for us. ”

I know Rafail cares about the fucking harbor, but I’m stuck on Anya.

The Irish. Fucking The Irish. Our rivals, always looking for an opening.

Rafail continues. “When he couldn’t pay, he put Anya down as cosigner on the loan.”

Silence. Then, a roaring in my ears. My vision tunnels. The steering wheel creaks under my grip.

Anya. Christ.

I slam my fist against the dashboard, the plastic groaning under the force. My breath comes in sharp, short bursts. They think they can take her? They think they can fucking touch her?

Rafail keeps talking, but I barely hear him. My heart pounds, my pulse racing. Anya, in the filthy, bloodstained hands of the fucking Irish. They’d rip her apart. Break her.

Rafail continues. “And in the eyes of the Irish…”

“A contract is a contract,” I finish through gritted teeth.

The Irish have been circling like vultures. If they get to the Borozov first and take the bakery, they claim access to the harbor… and Anya.

Anya Borzova . Elizar Borozov’s younger sister.

The girl who used to chase fireflies by the creek, the glow of them catching in her wild hair, her laughter making me smile when the world seemed dim and hopeless. The girl who would look at me with such wide and trusting eyes, it would make my heart ache. She’d blush furiously and run whenever she caught my gaze.

I watched her grow from a shy, freckle-faced kid into a headstrong woman with too much light, too much innocence for this world. I kept her at a distance.

I had to.

She was off-limits. Untouchable. I told myself it was to protect her, but the truth was much worse: I wanted her too much. She didn’t belong in this world—my world—and the closer she got, the more I knew I’d ruin her. I knew how easily I’d corrupt her. In my mind, if she was still my best friend’s little sister, she would stay safe.

If I could just pretend—if I could freeze her in time, hold her in my memory as the innocent kid who loved books more than people and dreamed of worlds bigger than ours—maybe she’d stay untouched by this life.

By me.

My mind quickly slides everything into place like the pieces on a chessboard.

“We have an option, Semyon, but I need your buy-in.”

“What’s that?” I curse under my breath, gripping the wheel tighter.

“We clear Borozov’s debt in exchange for his daughter’s hand in marriage.” A pause. “She’s an option.”

She could never be a fucking option.

“She’s a fucking child. ”

“She was when you knew her. She isn’t now. Marriage to Anya secures the bakery and with it, the harbor. It strengthens our family’s power and cuts the Irish off at the knees.”

I shake my head, grateful he can’t see me right now. I’m supposed to protect her, not use her in this endless game.

I’m silent for long moments, unable to respond.

Anya . Beautiful, headstrong, willful, and brilliant. I remember her sitting in the corner of her room with her freckled nose wrinkled in concentration, reading book after book while ignoring her chores, when she wasn’t risking her neck down by the stupid fucking creek.

I grind my teeth together as Rafail continues. “You marry her. Inherit the bakery, and it becomes ours. We pull that pawn right from under The Irish’s greedy hands, and from there, we control the routes they’ve been sniffing around. Tighten our hold on the region.”

I barely hear him. All I can think about is Anya.

Marry her.

A sharp rise of blood pulses through my temples as my hands tighten around the wheel. My teeth grind together. “Anya’s grown up, her brother’s made enemies—ours and others—and she’s out there.” I swallow hard. “Alone. And the Irish are about to take her.”

“Yes.”

“Call her father,” I snap. “And Rafail?”

“Yeah?”

“Make him an offer he can’t refuse.”

I hang up and gun the engine.