Page 108 of Pack Baby for the Bratva
I turned away from the window.
The dress was sage green. Knee-length. Sharply tailored. I'd chosen it over Ivan's suggestion of red. When he'd made the case that red would raise my father's blood pressure to medically interesting levels, I wanted to look like peace, not war. Soft enough to make him underestimate me. Precise enough to remind him I was my own woman.
I pinned my hair back at the sides, leaving the mark visible. The mark he allowed from an alpha who wasn’t mine.
I was no longer the Maeve McCarthy who had been sold. I was now Maeve Petrov. And proudly so.
I kissed Mac on the head before I left. My father would never meet his grandson. I'd never subject my son to a man who evaluated children like a number on his bank account. Mac made a soft sound in his sleep, one fist curling and uncurling. I patted Fergus’s head. He moved from his position at the foot of the bassinet to let me pass.
The house seemed to know something was happening. Staff vanished from the corridors and guards straightened as I passed. They lowered their eyes which I was finding was a Bratva gesture of respect that Artem pretended didn't make him smug and definitely did.
My heels clicked on the polished wood. Each step sounded heavy, like I knew I was going into war and didn’t care.
I didn’t belong to the man downstairs. I certainly didn’t belong to Finn. I belonged to myself, and because I belonged to myself, I had chosen the three men waiting for me in the hall.
Ivan was at the bottom of the staircase in a dark suit, leaning against the banister casually. His eyes roamed up and down my body.
“Time and a place,” I said.
He grinned in that way he only did for me and then he offered me his arm without a word. I took it.
We walked toward the formal sitting room together. The double doors were slightly ajar and I could hear my father's voice before I saw him.
"I don't have time for your games, Petrov." Loud. Sharp. The voice of a man who'd spent three decades shouting at people who couldn't shout back. "You promised the McCarthy syndicate an alliance through marriage. You took my youngest daughter. I want to see Mary, and I want to see the paperwork."
The slide of parchment across polished wood.
"See for yourself. Your daughter's signature." Artem's voice was smooth and completely empty. This was the voice he used when he was giving someone enough rope to hang themselves and wanted to see if they'd take it.
Silence.
"This is forged. That's not Mary's handwriting." My father's voice had climbed. "Where the hell is my daughter? What have you done with her?"
"What does it matter? The signature is there. The certificate is legally binding. All you care about is the deal."
"Did you kill her? Because I had her sign documents before she came here and that is not—"
"The European corridor belongs to the Bratva. I've signed operational control over to my cousin Yuri. You'll deal with him going forward."
"You had no right!" A heavy fist hit the table and sent a reflexive chill down my spine. Old wiring. I let it pass. "You think a piece of paper satisfies me? You took my youngest daughter and I want to see her immediately!"
"You want to see your daughter?" Artem's voice sharpened into something dangerous. “Why? You don’t care about her. Have you got another deal in place?”
“I want my daughter.”
That was my cue.
I pushed the doors open. “I’m here.”
My father froze with his mouth still half-open, his fist still resting on the table, his six men arrayed behind him like props in a play about masculine insecurity. He stared at me. At the dress. The diamonds in my ears. The way I held my head. He was looking for the terrified girl he'd sold and she wasn't there to be found.
"Maeve." He breathed the name like it belonged to him. Like he'd invented it. "What have they done to you?"
"Loved me."
My voice was steady. I walked further into the room and stopped beside Artem's chair. He started to rise. The plan had been for my alphas to leave, to give me the room, but I put a hand on his shoulder and pressed down. Stay.
Callum's eyes tracked the gesture the way a hawk tracks movement. Then they landed on my neck..
