Chapter 3

POV ILYA KRAVTSOV

Even though I wasn’t the kind of guy used to feeling cold, the night breeze cut like an icy blade as my brother and I approached the abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of Moscow.

"Is this the place?" I asked Kolya as he stopped the car.

"It’s the address Pavel gave me."

I took a good look around. The moon barely illuminated the deserted area, but our eyes were accustomed to the darkness.

"I still don’t get why Pavel assigned you to this. What happened to his soldiers? Are they useless now?"

"I volunteered. We’ve had this problem a few times before, and Pavel believes some of his men are involved. Men he thought he could trust."

I let out a grunt and shifted in my seat, nodding.

I knew things had been tense in Moscow ever since Pavel announced his intention to form an alliance with a cartel faction through marriage.

Some of the more traditional men believed he was handing over our control to the wrong hands and, worse, “selling out” for greed, aiming for greater control over drug trafficking in and out of the country through our organization.

"So, you decided to handle it yourself..."

"It’s my duty."

"It’s not. As a captain, I could’ve done this. I have trusted people who would follow me."

"No one is trustworthy right now, Ilya," he said, looking at me intently, with a deep frown. "I just... trust you."

For him to make that kind of confession, he had to be really desperate.

I hadn’t noticed it before because I’d been too busy mocking his loyalty, but Kolya seemed a bit worn out too. There were dark circles under his blue eyes, so much like mine, and I was starting to wonder what was going on that I didn’t know about.

It wasn’t the time to ask, though.

Still, I knew the weight Kolya carried. As Pavel’s trusted advisor, my brother had the sacred duty of ensuring every order was carried out to the letter, no matter the cost. Our pakhan was a temperamental man, and when things didn’t go as planned...

Well, I didn’t want to think about it.

Yurik Kisilev, the underboss, held his privileged position as a favor to Pavel’s father, but I knew he wasn’t as reliable as my brother. He held power through nepotism, which no one tolerated well—and this was yet another reason my brother worked so hard, getting his hands dirty to make sure everything was done right.

He believed that if he did a good job cleaning up Yurik’s messes, others would have more respect for Pavel.

A sound cut through the night, catching my attention. Kolya immediately tensed beside me.

"Stay alert, Ilya," he said quietly, and I immediately unlocked my Glock, ready to defend us.

"What’s the situation?"

"A shipment of weapons was diverted three weeks ago. Pavel got a lead and sent some men here, but they came back saying they found nothing." He paused, arming himself as well. "It’s heavy weaponry, but that’s not the only problem."

"And what is it?"

"The weapons were just a cover. There was a box with a hard drive full of encrypted files. It was a massive database of old transactions carried out by the Bratva. If it falls into the wrong hands..."

"It might already have, Kolya."

"Unlikely. Mitya was the one who secured the files. Someone could gain access to them, find them among the weapons—even though we were careful about that too—but if the hard drive was removed from its base, a signal would have been sent to our server. That hasn’t happened yet."

Dimitri was a genius with computers. From the moment he first touched one as a child, he’d been fascinated and quickly became a prodigy. Our father encouraged him from the beginning and sent him to train with the best.

The kid had become unbeatable. I agreed with Kolya—if anyone could make that hard drive inaccessible, it was Mitya.

The sound around us returned.

"There’s someone coming. We need to catch them by surprise."

"After we do that, what do we do with the shipment?"

"Only then will we call Pavel’s men. For now, it’s just the two of us."

Kolya was the first to jump out of the car, but I followed shortly after.

There were two men around the warehouse, and each of us took care of one. We tried not to use our guns at first, even though they had silencers, because we needed to be as discreet as possible. Our size and combat skills set us apart, and the element of surprise made things much easier.

I came up behind the bastard I needed to take down, put him in a chokehold, and, keeping one gloved hand over his mouth, snapped his neck. Kolya, on the other hand, used a dagger, striking the carotid artery.

With quick steps, we advanced, encountering other obstacles, but we were in sync.

Despite our differences, it was undeniable that Kolya and I worked very well together. We could have been an unbreakable duo if we wanted to. We had been trained by the same man—our father—and his reputation within the Bratva was relentless.

With all these skills we developed, communicating through mere glances, we reached the warehouse door without making a fuss. We didn’t know what we would find inside, but we no longer needed complete silence. Kolya signaled to me, and I kicked the wooden door open while he covered me.

With a soft crack, the entry gave way under my efforts, and we entered the place, drawing the attention of the bastards testing the weapons, spinning them in their hands, checking the bullets. One of them was even stroking a machine gun as if it were a woman’s thighs.

"The party’s over," I announced, pointing my gun. They had already jumped at the noise we made, but my voice grabbed their attention even more.

"What the fuck is this?" one of them asked.

"Oh, shit! We’re screwed! It’s the Kravtsovs. It’s the Beast! The Beast!" another shouted, dropping the gun he was holding and raising his hands.

Our reputation preceded us. They all knew very well what was about to happen.

One of them pointed his gun at us and even managed to fire, but he missed, probably because he was nervous.

Unlike him, I aimed my weapon and shot him precisely in the forehead. Kolya did the same with two more.

Four were left. One of them had to stay alive. We both knew that.

We advanced amid the gunfire, seeking cover while they tried to retaliate against our attacks—or attempted to. There were no questions, no conversations.

I ended up in a fistfight with one of the bastards, who was unarmed and tried to surprise me, but he didn’t stand a chance when I twisted his arm with force, breaking it, which sent him to the ground whimpering in pain. Feeling merciful, I shot him in the head too.

The place was quickly soaked in blood, as if we hadn’t stormed in just minutes ago. I was out of breath when we finished, but not because of the physical effort—because of the adrenaline.

I enjoyed it. Damn... I loved it. But it was different when my brother was by my side. Besides fighting to stay alive, I had to worry about him.

"Are you okay?" he asked me as soon as the shooting stopped, proving that the feeling was mutual and Kolya was worried about me too.

"Yeah. And you?" He nodded. "Did anyone survive?"

"That bastard over there," my brother said, pointing to a guy with a shattered knee who was half in shock, probably from the pain.

"Yeah, it could have been worse," I said, looking around, a bit of sarcasm in my voice.

But it really could have been. We’d done worse before.

And we carried violent memories of it—like when I earned my nickname: the Beast of the Bratva.

"What are we looking for?" I asked while Kolya grabbed the lone survivor, dragging him to cuff him to a pipe fixed to the wall.

"A smaller wooden box. It’s locked with a combination padlock. If it’s already open, you’ll find another black box inside. That’s the one with the sensor Mitya programmed."

As soon as he finished with the guy, the two of us began searching for the described object.

After a few minutes of looking, I found something that seemed to match the description.

"I think this is it."

My brother came closer, confirming my guess and looking relieved. He took the box I held, opened the lock, and found the other black box inside. It seemed untouched.

"Perfect. Let’s finish up here because you still have things to take care of."

Yes, I did. But that was fine—it was good to have my body warmed up and ready for whatever came next.

We stayed a little longer, but when we left, we left the survivor pinned to the wall, bleeding, with a message: "No one betrays the Bratva."

That was the kind of thing that happened to traitors.

I was fully aware of the consequences.