Page 39 of Obsessed Bratva's Pregnant Claim
“Better than I expected, honestly.” He said it without judgment. “She has the instincts for this. The situational reading.” A pause. “She hates being observed, which is useful in these rooms, because hatred keeps you alert.”
I looked at him, raising a brow.
“I’m complimenting your wife,” he said. “You could acknowledge it.”
“I’m acknowledging it,” I said, and moved away.
*****
Mikhail found me near the bar later.
This was Mikhail in the specific mode of a Pakhan conducting a reception—visible, controlled, working the room in the way that established presence without appearing to work. He had spoken to forty people in twenty minutes. He had made each of them feel individually considered. He would not remember most of their names by morning; he retained what mattered and discarded what didn’t, with a sorting mechanism that had never, in twenty-two years, failed to distinguish between the two.
He stopped beside me with a glass he was not drinking from.
“She fits,” he said.
I looked at Sofia across the room. She was with two of Mikhail’s business contacts now—men from the construction sector whose involvement with the Golovin operation was legitimate and whose goodwill was moderately useful. She was listening to one of them with the specific angle of head that meant she was actually listening, not performing it, and shesaid something that made him laugh in a genuine rather than obligated laughter.
“Yes,” I said.
“Elena’s relieved,” Mikhail said. “She won’t say that. She’ll say she wants to make sure Sofia is all right, that she has concerns, that the circumstances were—” a brief pause— “irregular. But underneath it, she’s relieved Sofia is inside the structure.” He glanced at me. “You may want to know that.”
I did want to know that. I just didn’t want to think of why that mattered.
“The north perimeter—” I started.
“I didn’t come to talk about the perimeter.” He was quiet for a moment. “You look at her differently,” he said. “From how you looked at her before.”
“Mikhail.”
“I’m observing. I’ve been observing you for decades, and this is a thing worth noting.” He drank, finally, a small measure. “It’s not a warning. It’s a piece of information.”
“I’m managing it.”
“I know you are.” He turned, surveying the room. “Just make sure you understand what you’re managing.”
He moved on.
I stood with my glass and looked at the room—the lights, the guests, the controlled performance of celebration—and felt the slight unease that had been running beneath the evening’s surface sharpen briefly before I settled it back into its managed position.
Cruz was quiet. The reception was proceeding correctly.
I looked for Sofia.
She had moved to the edge of the room, nearer to the windows, and was standing with Isla, who I had ensured was on the list, because Sofia had asked, and her asking had been enough. In the dark red dress with the Strip blazing behind her, she looked like something that had been here all along, and I had simply required time to recognize.
I crossed the room toward her.
She saw me coming—she always saw me coming now, her awareness of me in a room had become reflexive, which I understood was not entirely comfortable for her.
“Isla was asking about the honeymoon,” Sofia said when I reached them. Her voice was dry, which meant she was using humor as management. “She wants to know if you’re more of a private-island type.”
Her hand found my arm, briefly, before releasing it. The contact lasted two seconds and was unremarkable to anyone observing. It was the first thing she had initiated publicly since the ceremony.
I couldn’t come up with what to say. So I didn’t.
*****
