Chapter 25 Branded For Death
brANDED FOR DEATH
KONSTANTIN
The Bratva sigil was cold against my palm as I tore it off the pine.
The old wood splintered under my grip. Fresh blood-red paint smeared across my fingers, tacky and wet.
A message and a deadline, nailed to a tree.
“What does it mean?” Dani asked.
Her voice was steady, but I heard the tremor underneath. She stood a few feet away, arms crossed, chin tipped up like she could stare down fate if it had the decency to show its face.
I held the disc up so she could see the carved symbols. Old. Ugly. Familiar.
“It means we’re marked for death,” I said.
“And they’re not hiding it.”
I walked to the rusted fire pit beside the cabin and dropped the sigil in. Poured lighter fluid over it until the wood gleamed. One flick of the match and flames leapt up, eager and orange, licking at the edges of the symbol.
“It’s not safe to leave,” I said, watching the wood blacken and curl. “They could have the roads watched. Checkpoints. Spotters. And our phones are dead.”
No backup. No cavalry.
Just her and me and the guns.
“So what’s the plan?” she asked, moving closer to the fire. The heat painted her cheeks gold. “We hide in this shack until they get bored and go home?”
“We turn it into a fortress,” I said. I kicked dirt over the ashes once the sigil was nothing but char. Ground what remained under my heel. “If they want this place, they pay for every inch.”
If they wanted a war, they’d come to the right doorstep.
The next hour was controlled chaos.
I moved through the cabin like a man possessed, turning every board and beam into a weapon.
Old nails and fishing line became tripwires.
Cans, glass, and some leftover fireworks from a forgotten hunter became noise traps and flashbangs.
I rigged what little explosive material we had into crude pressure plates near the approaches.
Every window became a shooting position. Every doorway, a kill zone.
Dani sat at the kitchen table, field-stripping pistols and cleaning rifles with steady hands. She’d found the emergency cache of weapons under the floorboards—enough firepower to make this a very unpleasant hill to die on for anyone stupid enough to try.
She wasn’t packing bags. She wasn’t begging for surrender.
She was loading magazines.
“You missed a spot,” she said, nodding toward the back of the cabin as I checked the front approach for the third time. “Southeast side. There’s a tree line dip they could use to flank us. No coverage there.”
I paused.
She was right.
“You’ve been paying attention,” I said.
“I’m a fast learner.” She offered a quick, crooked smile. “Perk of being married to a dangerous man.”
Something ugly and proud twisted in my chest at the same time.
As the light faded, the adrenaline started to ebb, leaving behind raw nerves and too much silence. I found myself pacing, checking and rechecking weapons that didn’t need it. Counting ammo. Counting exits. Counting ways this could go wrong.
When Dani’s hand brushed my arm, I actually flinched.
“Konstantin,” she said.
I didn’t turn. Couldn’t. The leash on everything inside me felt too thin.
“You’re going to wear a hole in the floor,” she went on. “And your shoulder’s bleeding again.”
I looked down. Crimson had blossomed through the bandage, seeping into the fabric of my shirt.
I’d forgotten about the wound.
“I’m fine,” I lied.
“You’re not fine.” She stepped closer, scent of her hair cutting through gun oil and smoke. “You’re coming apart.”
“Waiting is worse than shooting,” I muttered. The admission scraped out of me. “I can handle bullets, bombs, blood. I don’t know what the fuck to do with… this.” I gestured vaguely at the walls. At the traps. At the trees hiding my enemies.
“Then don’t just wait,” she said. “Teach me.”
I looked at her, not sure I’d heard correctly. “Teach you what?”
“To fight,” she said simply. “If they’re coming for us, I don’t want to be dead weight. Show me how to hurt them back.”
Pride and terror warred in my chest.
But she was right. If this was our last stand, she deserved the tools to make someone bleed first.
We started with the gun.
She fumbled at first—grip a little off, stance too rigid. I stepped behind her, close enough to feel the warmth of her back against my chest, and wrapped my hands around hers, adjusting finger placement, fixing her sight line.
“Breathe out on the trigger pull,” I murmured into her ear. “Don’t fight the recoil. Let it surprise you.”
The first shot went wide, kicking snow off a low branch.
The second hit paper just outside the center ring of the crude target I’d nailed to a pine. By the fifth, she was grouping inside center-mass tight enough to make any instructor nod.
“She’s a natural,” I thought. God help anyone who thought she was just decoration.
“Self-defense,” I said, holstering the pistol and stepping in front of her. “If someone grabs you from behind—”
I demonstrated, arm sliding around her throat in a loose choke.
Her elbow drove back into my ribs with enough force to bruise. She twisted, stomped down at my foot, and brought her knee up toward my groin with lethal intent.
I blocked it because I saw it coming.
If I hadn’t, I’d have been on the floor.
“Fast learner, indeed,” I said, a laugh catching in my throat.
Our practice blurred.
One second, I was correcting the angle of her elbow. The next, I was pinned against the wall, her breath hot on my mouth, cheeks flushed from exertion, eyes dark and bright all at once.
“Is this part of the lesson?” she asked, voice low and rough.
“No,” I said honestly. “This is me losing my mind.”
I kissed her.
Everything that had been twisting inside me—fear, rage, need—poured into the contact. She answered with all of her own, hands fisting in my shirt, pulling me closer even though the movement tugged at my shoulder.
When we broke apart, night had settled fully outside. The fire in the small hearth crackled and spat, painting the cramped room in gold that almost made it feel like a home someone had loved once.
Almost.
We ended up on the sagging couch, weapons still within arm’s reach. She curled against my uninjured side, head tucked under my chin, watching the flames dance.
For a few stolen minutes, it was easy to pretend we were just a couple in a shitty cabin with a broken heater, not two marks waiting for execution.
“Konstantin,” she said quietly.
“Mmm?” I traced my fingers along her forearm, over small nicks and bruises that made my blood simmer.
“I love you,” she said.
The words hit harder than any bullet ever had.
Not because I hadn’t seen it building in her eyes. I had. But hearing it… made it real in a way nothing else could.
She loves me.
The woman carrying my child loves me.
“I love you too,” I said.
The admission felt like stepping off a roof.
“More than I thought I could,” I added. “More than is probably wise.”
More than anything. More than life. More than the crown everyone was fighting over.
She tilted her head up to look at me. Tears glistened on her cheeks, but her smile was bright and defiant.
“Say it again,” she whispered.
“I love you, Dani Morales,” I said, cupping her face. My thumbs brushed the tears away. “I love you. And I’m going to keep you safe. Whatever it costs.”
Even if it costs what’s left of my soul.
She kissed me, soft and slow. It tasted less like desperation and more like… faith.
“We’re going to survive this,” she said when we parted.
For the first time since the tree lot, I believed that might be true.
I let myself enjoy it.
Just for a heartbeat.
I whispered her name into her hair, a prayer and a promise.
“Dani.”
Then gunfire shattered the window, and the world came crashing back in.