Chapter 4 #7
“Neither is where she’s been.”
Rafael watches him for a beat. Like he’s reassessing. Or maybe he already knew Kellan would say that.
“Fine,” he says, calm again. “Then here’s how this works.”
He moves behind the bar, pouring another drink—but this time, it’s all business.
“You’ll be assigned off-floor security. Not marked. You’ll stay in rotation at the casino, but when I give you an order—you follow it. I don’t repeat myself.”
Kellan nods once.
Ash mutters, “We’re not bodyguards.”
Rafael raises an eyebrow.
“No. You’re leverage.”
Kellan tenses, but he doesn’t argue.
Ash lets out a sharp breath. “Anything happens to her?—”
“And you’ll die before you reach me,” Rafael finishes easily. “Try not to let that happen.”
Another pause. Then Rafael lifts his glass in dismissal.
“You’ll be contacted soon with details. Until then, stay out of the way.”
He turns toward the windows, gaze fixed on the skyline again. Like we’re done. Like this was just a transaction.
Ash and Kellan start moving, stepping toward the door. I begin to follow.
And then?—
“Wait.”
Rafael’s voice slices through the silence again. We stop. He doesn’t look away from the glass in his hand. But I feel his eyes on me.
“What’s your name.”
My breath catches. Not Natasha. Not the name I chose for the lie. But the one that’s mine. The one I buried. The one he’s pulling back up.
I hesitate for half a second. But I know it’s time. So I say it.
“Isabella.”
It hangs in the room like a trigger pulled. He finally turns to face me. His expression unreadable. But something flickers behind his eyes.
“Isabella,” he repeats slowly. Testing it. Owning it. Then he nods once. “We’ll be in touch.”
The doors close behind us with a weighted click.
The second they do, I exhale. Only then do I feel how tight my shoulders had been. How the blood on my arm has started to dry. How the weight of that room is still clinging to my skin.
We step into the elevator, the silence heavy.
Ash’s jaw is locked tight. Kellan presses the button for the garage without a word.
As the elevator begins to move, I close my eyes for a second, breathing in slow.
“That was fucking insane,” Ash mutters finally.
Kellan scoffs. “You think?”
Ash turns to me. “You okay?”
I nod once. “Yeah.”
But none of us believe it.
“You gave him your name,” Kellan says quietly. “That’s a big deal.”
“He was going to find it anyway,” I answer. “This way… I gave it to him.”
A beat of silence.
Ash lets out a bitter laugh. “And now we work for the fucking Bratva.”
Kellan mutters, “It was that or die.”
I shrug. “We’re still alive.”
“Yeah,” Ash mutters. “But the question is… for how long?”
The elevator dings. We step into the garage, fluorescent lights flickering overhead. The space is silent, every footstep echoing.
We walk toward the car in silence. No guards. No one stops us. But it doesn’t feel like freedom. It feels like a leash we haven’t felt tug yet.
As we approach the car, Kellan presses the unlock on the key fob. The headlights blink once. They both glance at me, waiting.
I slide into the back seat, letting the door shut behind me. My heart still hasn’t slowed. Because we walked out. But we’re not out. We just stepped deeper in.
The car door clicks shut behind me, sealing out the world with a low, muffled finality.
Kellan slides behind the wheel, jaw tight, one hand gripping the leather so hard the veins in his forearm bulge. Ash drops into the passenger seat with a grunt, dragging his hand down his face before slamming the door.
The engine purrs to life, low and smooth, but no one speaks right away. We’re too busy thinking. Or maybe just breathing.
I sink back into the seat, my arm stinging from the dried blood, my head spinning not from fear—but from the sheer weight of what we just walked out of.
We should’ve died tonight. But instead… we joined him.
“So,” Ash mutters finally, “we’re Bratva now.”
Kellan snorts bitterly. “Don’t say it like that.”
Ash turns halfway toward the back seat, shooting me a glance.
“Should we be celebrating? Or throwing up?”
“Neither,” I say quietly. “Not yet.”
“You gave him your name,” he says again. “That wasn’t part of the plan.”
“No,” I murmur, “but plans change when someone puts a gun to your head and a knife to your brother’s throat.”
Ash exhales hard, then slams his fist lightly against the dash.
Kellan drives in silence for a moment, his jaw tight.
“It was smart,” he says eventually, eyes forward. “You gave him just enough to let us live.”
“For now,” Ash mutters.
“Don’t start,” Kellan snaps.
“I’m just saying what we’re all thinking.”
“That we’re in over our heads?” I cut in.
They both go silent.
Because we are. But we’re also exactly where we need to be.
“We wanted in,” I remind them. “Now we are.”
Ash glances at me again. “You think he believed the lie?”
I pause. Then I nod once. “Enough to let us stay close.”
Kellan finally speaks again, voice lower. “Then we play it carefully. No mistakes. No unnecessary moves. Until we get what we came for.”
I lean my head back, watching the glow of the city blur past the window.
“We’re not leaving until I know the truth,” I whisper.
Neither of them argues. Because they already knew that.
We ride in silence for a while. The city thinning out as we pass into quieter streets, winding further from the gleam of downtown.
My eyes blur against the passing streetlights.
Rafael’s voice still echoes in the back of my mind— Isabella.
The way he said it. Like he was tucking it away for later. Like he’d earned it.
He hasn’t. But that doesn’t mean he won’t try.
“We’re not going back to your place tonight,” Kellan says, glancing at me in the rearview. “Too close. Too obvious.”
I nod.
“We’ll go to mine,” he adds. “I’ll call for cleanup in the morning to take care of your arm.”
Ash nods. “I’ll set new firewalls on your system. You know he’ll start digging.”
“Let him,” I say.
Kellan doesn’t answer, but I see his fingers tighten around the wheel.
As the car turns onto the hill leading to Kellan’s place—a tall, secure estate nestled just outside the main city—I exhale slowly, letting the weight of everything finally settle in.
We’re alive. We’re in.
And Rafael Romanov…
He knows my name now. But he doesn’t know the woman behind it.
Not yet.