Chapter 12 – Kirill
The VIP booth sat elevated above the main floor of the club, giving us a clear view of everything below while keeping us separate. Isolated. The music was muted up here, just a distant throb of bass that you felt more than heard. It made conversation possible, which was the point.
I sat wedged between Drew and the leather armrest, nursing a vodka that I had no intention of drinking. The glass was just something to do with my hands. Something to focus on besides the woman I could see at the bar below, her chestnut hair catching the strobe lights.
Barbara.
I’d been avoiding looking at her for the past thirty minutes. Mostly succeeding. The keyword being mostly.
Timur occupied the head of the table, all six-foot-two of violence barely contained in an expensive suit.
His dark eyes scanned the club below like he was cataloging threats, filing away faces for future reference.
Next to him sat Andrei—Vladimir’s son, sharp-featured and calculating, with gray eyes that missed nothing.
Drew sat to my left, his usual relaxed posture at odds with the tension thrumming beneath his skin. And across from us, Damir sprawled in his seat like he owned the place, a smirk playing at his lips that meant trouble.
“Los Zetas are splintering,” Andrei said, pulling my attention back to the conversation. He had a tablet in front of him, numbers and names scrolling across the screen. “Divided into three major groups as of last week. Inner rebellions. Power plays. It’s getting messy inside their organization.”
Drew raised a brow, his steel-gray eyes sharp with interest. “Messy is excellent for Bratva.” He reached for his drink, swirling the amber liquid thoughtfully. “Slower money flow, less structure. Easier to pick them apart.”
“Exactly.” Andrei nodded, tapping the screen to pull up a new set of data.
“Their cash routes are shaky. Wire transfers are being rerouted through three different channels now instead of one centralized system. Even the Cartel’s stash house in Arizona got hit by their own people last week.
” He paused, his expression grim. “Some want the old ways—traditional hierarchy, established territories. Some want chaos—burn it all down and rebuild from scratch.”
“And some just want to survive,” Drew added quietly.
Timur reached for the vodka bottle in the center of the table and poured two shots exactly. No ice. No mixer. Just straight vodka, the way it was meant to be consumed. He downed the first shot in one smooth motion, then immediately reached for the second.
The second glass slammed down on the table hard enough to make the ice in my untouched drink jump. Timur exhaled slowly, deliberately, as the burn settled in his chest. Then he cracked his neck, the sound audible even over the muted club music.
He stared down the table at all of us, his expression going flat and deadly.
“I don’t care if Los Zetas are in one piece or fifty,” he said, his voice dropping to a growl that made something primal in my hindbrain want to back away. “If anyone wears Zetas ink, they’re an enemy. I came to this city to cut every head that dares rise against the Bratva. Every. Single. One.”
The temperature in the booth seemed to drop several degrees. This was Timur Kamarov in his element—not the businessman who smiled at city officials or the brother who protected Illyana. This was the enforcer. The weapon Bratva pointed at its enemies and pulled the trigger.
“Understood,” Andrei said simply. He’d grown up around men like Timur. Knew better than to question or soften the statement.
Drew just nodded, his expression giving nothing away.
But I saw the slight tension in his shoulders, the way his hand tightened fractionally on his glass.
He was calculating, always calculating. Figuring out how this war with Los Zetas would affect his operations, his people, his carefully constructed life.
I should’ve been doing the same. Should’ve been thinking about how cartel violence would impact my security systems, whether I needed to upgrade protocols for Bratva properties, how to protect the infrastructure I’d built.
Instead, I was thinking about Barbara.
About the fact that Sebastian Davis—her half-brother, not her boyfriend, Jesus Christ—was connected to Los Zetas.
About the masked man in the parking lot who’d fought with cartel training and disappeared with cartel tactics.
About the danger she’d been living with for five years, while I’d been too stupid to see it.
“Kirill.”
Drew’s voice cut through my spiraling thoughts. I looked up to find him watching me with concern that he was trying and failing to hide. “You okay? You’ve been really quiet tonight.”
Before I could formulate a response that wouldn’t invite more questions, Damir leaned forward with a mischievous glint in his eyes that I immediately distrusted.
“Kirill’s not the only one being quiet,” he said, his smirk widening. He gestured with his glass toward the bar below. “Barbara’s just as silent down there at the counter. Funny how that works.”
Every muscle in my body went rigid.
Sharp Russian curses spilled from my mouth before I could stop them—words my mother would’ve slapped me for, words that made even Timur’s eyebrows raise slightly. I grabbed my vodka and downed it in one burning gulp, the alcohol doing nothing to cool the rage suddenly flooding my veins.
Damir chuckled, clearly pleased with himself. “Hit a nerve, did I?”
“Fuck off,” I bit out.
“Leave it alone,” Drew said, his voice carrying a warning that Damir ignored.
“I’m just saying, it’s interesting.” Damir leaned back in his seat, that insufferable smirk still in place. “The way you two have been circling each other all night. Not looking but always aware. Classic tells.”
“There’s nothing to tell,” I said through gritted teeth.
“Right.” Damir drew out the word, making it clear he didn’t believe me for a second. “That’s why you’ve been white-knuckling that glass since we sat down. That’s why you cursed in Russian, which, by the way, even I don’t know all those words, and I’m impressed.”
Timur’s attention shifted from the club below to me, his dark eyes assessing. “This about the Davis girl? The one whose mansion you’re working on?”
“It’s not about anyone,” I lied. “Can we focus on Los Zetas instead of my personal life?”
“You have a personal life?” Damir asked innocently. “That’s news.”
“Fuck you.”
Drew sighed and turned to me, his expression serious despite Damir’s attempts at humor. “Just talk to her,” he said quietly. “Whatever this is between you two, it’s eating you alive. I can see it.”
“There’s nothing to talk about,” I insisted, even as the lie tasted bitter. “She’s just…she’s a job. Andrew’s daughter. That’s it.”
But inside, it was chaos.
A war zone of conflicting emotions that I didn’t know how to process. Because Drew was right; there was everything to talk about. Five years of blackmail. Sebastian’s attacks. The terror I’d seen in her eyes. The way I’d treated her like trash when she’d been breaking apart from the inside.
The fact that I’d accused her of cheating, of playing games, of sending her ‘boyfriend’ after me, when all along she’d been a prisoner in her own life. Terrorized by family. Blackmailed into submission. Alone in a nightmare that I’d made worse with my assumptions and accusations.
God, I wanted to hate her. Wanted to cling to the anger and betrayal I’d felt when I thought she was protecting some bastard boyfriend. When I thought she’d been playing me, using me, lying for sport.
But I couldn’t. Not anymore. Not since learning the truth.
Now all I felt was guilt for not seeing what was right in front of me. For treating her like she was the problem when she’d been the victim all along. For walking away when she’d needed someone, anyone, to stay.
For being exactly like everyone else in her life who’d failed to protect her.
The thought made me want to put my fist through something. Preferably Sebastian Davis’s face, but the table would do in a pinch.
I closed my eyes, forcing the spiraling thoughts to stop. This wasn’t helping. Wallowing in guilt and rage wasn’t going to change anything.
All it would do was make me useless. And I couldn’t afford to be useless. Not when she was still in danger. Not when Sebastian was still out there, still threatening her with whatever leverage he had over her head like a guillotine.
I needed to be better. Smarter. More controlled.
And I needed to stop feeling like a fucking teenager every time her name crossed my mind.
Decision made, I opened my eyes and reached for the vodka bottle. Poured myself another shot. Raised it toward the center of the table where everyone could see.
“To war,” I said, my voice steady despite the chaos inside.
Timur’s expression shifted, something that might’ve been approval flickering in his dark eyes. He raised his glass, nodding once. “To ending Zetas,” he added, his voice carrying the weight of a promise. A threat. A certainty.
Drew and Andrei raised their glasses. Even Damir dropped the smirk long enough to participate, his expression going serious in a way it rarely did.
“To war,” they echoed.
We drank in unison, the vodka burning a path down my throat that I barely felt. Because my mind was already elsewhere, already dividing into two separate battlefields.
The war Timur was talking about—Los Zetas and territory and violence that would paint Chicago’s streets red before it was over.
And the war inside me. The one that had been raging since the moment Barbara Davis looked at me across that club, and something fundamental shifted in my chest.
Between the man Vladimir had tried to make me and the man I’d always been underneath. The one who saw someone hurting and wanted to destroy whoever was responsible. The one who’d killed two men in a fit of rage and would probably do it again if given the right motivation.
The one who was rapidly deciding that Vladimir’s promise meant nothing compared to keeping Barbara safe.
I wasn’t sure which war was more dangerous: the external one with cartels, bullets, and body counts, or the internal one with guilt, rage, and feelings I didn’t know how to handle. Wasn’t sure which one I was more likely to lose.
Below us, I could see Barbara at the bar, her friends clustering around her like they sensed she needed protection. Hailey said something that made Cassandra laugh, but Barbara just stared at her drink like it held answers she desperately needed.
She looked small. Fragile. Nothing like the woman who’d grabbed the back of my neck and kissed me like she was claiming territory. Nothing like the woman who’d gasped my name and fallen apart in my arms.
I was going to help her whether she wanted it or not. Whether she asked or not. Whether it destroyed me in the process or not.
Because she was worth everything.
The realization should’ve scared me. Should’ve made me pull back, reassess, think about the consequences.
Instead, it felt like relief. Like finally admitting something I’d been denying since that first dance. Since the moment those honey-brown eyes met mine and the world narrowed to just us.
“You’re doing it again,” Drew said quietly, pulling me back to the present.
“Doing what?”
“Looking at her like you’re planning something stupid.”
I turned to face him, and whatever he saw in my expression made him sigh.
“Kirill—”
“I know,” I cut him off. “I know what you’re going to say. That this is complicated. That I should focus on my job and let someone else handle Barbara’s problems. That getting involved will only make things worse.”
“Actually,” Drew said, surprising me, “I was going to say that if you’re going to do something stupid, at least be smart about it. And maybe let the rest of us help before you get yourself killed.”
I blinked at him. “What?”
“She’s Hailey’s friend.” Drew shrugged. “Which makes her Cassandra’s friend. Which makes her our problem, whether we want it to be or not. Besides”—He glanced at Timur, then back to me—“if Sebastian really is Los Zetas connected, then helping Barbara becomes Bratva business anyway.”
Timur caught the last part of the conversation and raised an eyebrow. “Something I should know about?”
“Possibly,” Drew said. “Depends on how much you care about a Davis family drama that might have cartel ties.”
“I care about anything with cartel ties.” Timur’s voice went flat. “Brief me later. All of you.”
It wasn’t a request.
I nodded, already planning what I could and couldn’t share. How to protect Barbara’s secrets while still getting the help we’d need to handle Sebastian.
Because this wasn’t just about me anymore. Wasn’t just about my guilt or my promise to Vladimir or my complicated feelings for a woman I barely knew but couldn’t stop thinking about.
This was bigger. Messier. The situation could explode in all our faces if we weren’t careful.
And I was about to walk straight into the center of it.
“To war,” I said again, softer this time. Speaking to myself more than anyone else.
To the war I was about to start. The one that would either save Barbara Davis or destroy us both.
I just hoped I was ready for the consequences.