The Enforcer’s Pawn (The Bratva Blacklist #3)

1. Prologue

PROLOGUE

CARA

Boston, five years ago

Dmitri Antonov makes me want to be a very bad girl.

This is inconvenient for several reasons.

First, I’m not a very bad girl. I’m a reasonably good woman who pays taxes, changes passwords every ninety days, and can spot a phishing email before the scammer finishes ruining the subject line.

Second, I came to Patrick’s party under protest, wearing jeans I’d decided were nice enough because black denim is the Swiss Army Knife of clothing.

Third, the man currently making my common sense curl up under a table and beg for mercy is standing across Patrick’s penthouse like he already knows where everybody would fall if the night went wrong.

Which, given Patrick’s guest list, is not a crazy thing to know.

My brother throws parties the way other people set traps. Expensive liquor, soft lighting, and enough catered food to make everyone pretend this isn’t a business meeting. Patrick calls it networking. I call it a felony aquarium.

“You’re staring,” Patrick observes beside me.

I turn my head and give him my sweetest sisterly smile, the one that says I know where your bodies are buried because you once made me encrypt the spreadsheet.

“I stare at idiots too, but I try not to make it obvious.”

Patrick laughs because people are watching us, and Patrick never misses a chance to look charming in public.

He’s handsome in the clean Irish way that makes older women forgive him before he even lies.

Dark blond hair, sharp blue eyes, a smile that can open wallets, doors, and occasionally, disaster.

Tonight he’s wearing a navy suit and the expression of a man who thinks he’s three clever moves ahead of everyone.

He isn’t. Patrick is often one clever move ahead and two reckless drinks behind.

Across the main hall, the Russian watches us.

No, not us.

Me.

He doesn’t do it like the others. No lazy scan from face to chest to hips. No little smirk. No pretending he isn’t interested while giving himself neck strain.

Dmitri Antonov looks at me once, directly, and I feel naked.

He’s tall, broad, dark-haired, and entirely out of place here, standing near the windows beside two other Russian men, holding a glass he barely drinks from, wearing a black suit that makes every other suit in the place look rented.

Patrick tracks my gaze, and something shifts at the edge of his smile. “Careful,” he says.

I look back at him. “That’s rich coming from you.”

“I mean it, Cara.”

“Wow. A brotherly warning. Should I put it in a scrapbook or forward it to the FBI?”

His mouth tightens before he fixes it. Patrick hates when I joke about federal agencies at his parties. This alone makes it one of my favorite hobbies. “He’s not one of mine,” Patrick says.

I take a sip of champagne I don’t want. “Nobody here is one of yours. They just let you pretend because you keep buying the good liquor.”

“He’s a Volkov.”

Even in Boston, even around Irish families who think history began when their grandfather learned to swing a bat, the Volkov name has weight.

Freight. Security. Money routes. Russian men who don’t appear in headlines because headlines are for people who made mistakes.

Patrick has been circling that world for months, pretending he’s offering introductions while begging for relevance in a nicer suit.

Patrick had started saying cargo routes lately, which was never comforting from a man who once lost his own suitcase on a direct flight.

He’d also picked up a fresh interest in Russian names he pretended were ordinary business contacts.

Morozov was one of them, said with the casual tone people use when mentioning a shark they swear is nowhere near the boat.

I glance at Dmitri again before I can stop myself. He’s no longer looking at me. He’s watching Patrick now, and his face says he’s found a math error.

“Volkov,” I repeat. “As in don’t-breathe-near-their-money Volkov?”

Patrick’s eyes sharpen. “Don’t say things like that here.”

“Then don’t invite me to felony brunch after dark.”

“It’s a reception.”

“It’s a room full of criminals and shrimp towers.”

“Keep your voice down.”

“I am. I’m using my indoor indictment voice.”

Patrick gives another charming laugh for the benefit of a passing couple. The woman smiles at him, then at me, then hurries on because she has clearly decided sibling affection is better observed from a safe distance.

“Try not to audit the room out loud for one night,” he says, lowering his voice the way he does when he wants to remind me he’d been born first by a handful of years.

“I’m not auditing. I’m sampling,” I mouth. For frauds.

“You’re making people uncomfortable.”

“Then your people should stop using fake names badly,” I say, smiling into my glass.

Patrick’s hand closes around my elbow, light enough to look polite and tight enough to annoy me.

“Careful.”

I glance down at his hand, then back at his face. “Or what? You’ll tell Mom I’m being difficult?”

Patrick keeps hold of my arm, smiling for the room.

“Then stop bringing me to parties where the fraud has appetizers,” I say.

His smile holds, but only because witnesses are nearby. “You don’t know what you’re looking at.”

“That has never been my problem.”

“Tonight it might be.” His thumb presses once against my sleeve, warning dressed up as brotherly concern. “These people don’t like being studied.”

“Then they should try being less interesting.”

His hand tightens.

Before I can decide whether to make a scene or merely ruin his whole week, a voice says, “I wasn’t introduced.”

Patrick releases me. I look up. Dmitri Antonov stands beside us, glass still in hand, mouth almost amused.

“And I wouldn’t dare use a fake name badly,” he says.

Dmitri Antonov has crossed the hall without making a ripple.

One moment he was near the windows, and now he’s close enough that I can see the faint scar cutting through one eyebrow and the cool patience in his eyes.

They’re dark, but not flat. There’s something alive in them, something amused and dangerous, which is frankly rude. A man should pick one lane.

Patrick recovers first because fraud and charm are his twin lungs. “Antonov. I didn’t realize you’d met my sister.”

“We haven’t.” Dmitri looks at me. “Not properly.”

I lift my glass a little. “Improperly sounds faster.”

For one second, nothing moves. Then Dmitri laughs, and it changes his whole face for half a breath, and I hate how much I want to see it again.

Patrick notices too. “This is Cara,” he says, like I’m a minor accounting inconvenience. “She works in cybersecurity.”

“I break things first,” I say. “The security part comes later.”

Dmitri’s mouth curves. “Useful.”

“Only if you’re not the thing I’m breaking.”

Patrick makes a warning sound under his breath. “Cara.”

Dmitri doesn’t look away from me. “No, let her talk.”

My eyebrows go up. “Let me?”

He inclines his head. “Poor word choice.”

I raise a brow at him. “That’s almost self-awareness. You must be dangerous.”

“Must be?”

“I’m still collecting evidence.”

Patrick laughs again, but the sound has a brittle edge now. “My sister collects many things. Evidence, grudges, stray opinions no one asked for.”

“Older brothers,” I tell Dmitri, “are nature’s way of making women learn sarcasm before puberty.”

Dmitri looks at Patrick. “Then he has been useful.”

“Accidentally,” I say. “His favorite kind of contribution.”

Patrick clears his throat. “Dmitri is here on behalf of some freight interests.”

“Freight,” I say. “That’s a soothing word.”

Dmitri watches me over the rim of his glass. “You dislike freight?”

“I dislike words men use when they mean guns, dirty money, or both.”

Patrick’s smile thins. “She jokes.”

“She tells the truth and makes it smaller so men can survive hearing it,” Dmitri says.

Well. That is annoying.

No one is supposed to understand me at Patrick’s parties. The whole point of these events is to stand around eating canapés while men explain obvious concepts to me until I fantasize about setting their cloud storage on fire.

I take another sip to cover the tiny spark of pleasure Dmitri’s words put in my chest. “You’re going to make me sound interesting, and then I’ll have to live up to it.”

“I don’t think that’s your problem.”

Patrick steps between us by half an inch. Pathetic. “Cara was just leaving soon.”

“Was I?”

“Yes. You said you had work.”

“I always have work. That’s the beauty of being related to you. Password emergencies keep me humble.”

Dmitri’s eyes move between us. “You work for him?”

“God, no. I occasionally save him from the consequences of clicking things he shouldn’t.”

Patrick’s voice cools. “Enough.”

I look at him then, really look, and behind the expensive charm, I see it. Strain. A flicker of panic, carefully folded away. Patrick isn’t just hosting tonight. He’s selling something. Maybe access. Maybe loyalty. Maybe a version of himself that important men might buy.

Dmitri sees it. I can tell by the way he stops smiling.

A server passes, and Patrick snatches a glass he doesn’t need. “Antonov, there are people I want you to meet.”

“I’ve met enough.”

Patrick’s smile stalls. “Of course. Then maybe later.”

Dmitri turns his attention back to me, dismissing my brother without a word. I should find that horrifying. I do find it horrifying. I also find it deeply educational and inconveniently hot.

Patrick leans close to my ear. “Don’t start something you don’t understand.”

I answer softly enough that only he hears. “Then stop bringing me places where everything has a body count.”

His eyes flash. For one ugly second, he looks less like my brother and more like every man in this place who thinks family is just another asset class. Then the mask returns, and he walks away to rescue his evening from my personality.

I turn to Dmitri. “Congratulations. You scared off my brother. Do you do children’s parties?”

“Only if the children are armed.”

“That’s very Russian of you.”