Page 64 of Obsessed Bratva's Pregnant Claim
“The Monarch Club meeting,” I said. “What’s the read?”
“Whatever they wanted, they escalated. The in-person contact at this stage of an asset relationship means the remote channel has become insufficient for their purposes.” He was careful with the language, which I noted. He was calling her an asset because that was operationally accurate and because calling her something else would have required a different kindof conversation than the one we were having. “They would have presented demands. Likely with a timeline.”
“And leverage.”
“Yes.” He looked at me. “The documentation they have—the communication logs, the confirmation records. They can deliver that package whenever they choose. They’ve been choosing not to because a live asset is more valuable than a burned one.” A pause. “If she stops being cooperative, the calculation changes.”
“She’s not going to be cooperative.”
He was quiet for a moment. “How do you know that?”
I thought about Sofia walking into a venue tied to Cruz’s operation at 9 pm alone. About what she would have found there and what she would have said, because I knew what she said in difficult situations—I had watched her say it in corridors and suites, the stubborn clarity of a woman who had decided the truth was the instrument she was going to use even when it was not the safe instrument.
She had told me the truth last night when I asked.
She would not have told Cruz’s people what they needed to hear.
“Because I know her,” I said.
Sergei absorbed this without comment.
“If I move openly,” I said, “Cruz retaliates. The documentation gets released, the operation escalates, she becomes the active battleground rather than the asset they’remanaging.” I looked at the desk. “If I don’t move, she goes deeper. The deadline—”
“You know they gave her a deadline?”
“The Monarch Club meeting had a deadline. Cruz’s operations always have deadlines.” I looked at him. “What’s available that’s clean?”
He understood what I was asking. Clean meant invisible. Clean meant Sofia did not know the surveillance had been reinstated. Clean meant that what I was doing now was not control—not the management of a variable—but something that did not have an operational name and that I was going to do regardless of whether it had one.
“I can have coverage on her movements within the hour,” Sergei said. “Building exits, transit routes, location monitoring. Nothing that touches the penthouse directly.” He paused. “But boss, this is not the same as protection. Coverage keeps her visible to us. It doesn’t intercept threats.”
“I know what it is.”
“If someone moves against her and we’re in a coverage posture rather than a protective posture—”
“I know,” I said. “Set it up.”
He opened his laptop.
I was a man dealing with regret and would take whatever I could get. At first.
*****
The live feed came online hours later.
The building’s external cameras, supplemented by two mobile units Sergei had positioned within the hour, were feeding to a screen on the desk in front of me. The penthouse floor was not covered. I had told him not to cover the penthouse floor but the lobby, the exits, and the street approaches.
I sat and looked at the screen.
She was in there. Not visible on any feed, which was correct because the penthouse itself was not covered. But in the building. Alive.
I thought about what the Monarch Club meeting had looked like. Cruz’s people presenting demands. Sofia in whatever she had chosen to wear—the armoring thing she did with clothing and that eyeliner, the deployment of appearance as preparation. I imagined her sitting across from men who held documentation of her choices and were using it as the instrument of further choices.
She had not come to me.
That was the piece I had been sitting with since Sergei had shown me the Monarch Club timestamp. She had gone to a meeting with Cruz’s operation alone rather than coming to me with what was happening. She had the truth between us now—I had heard it, she had confirmed it, and the confrontation had happened—and with the truth between us and the deadline arriving, she had made a plan that did not involve me.
Because I had told her I was not available.
