Page 24 of The Bratva's Secret Baby
I duck and keep my head down. The world narrows to sound and motion and the thought that this is too clean to be chance. One wrong move and I’m in a different car.
We lose them by inches and choices and roads Dominik knows. When we finally stop, my pulse is hammering in my throat.
“This wasn’t about hurting you,” I say once I can breathe again.
He looks at me, eyes dark. “It was exactly about you.”
“No,” I correct him. “They weren’t trying to grab me. If they wanted me, they would’ve boxed us in.”
He sits still.
“Don’t you see?” I say. “They were trying to make you move. To pull you back in. To make you choose.”
We don’t argue after that. Later, in another borrowed room that still smells like someone else’s life, I lie awake and watch him sit in the dark. He doesn’t sleep. He listens to the night, counting doors, measuring distances.
That’s when it settles in.
The council isn’t negotiating anymore. They’re done asking. The next time they move, they’ll make one of us pay.
7
DOMINIK
The light from the street cuts across the carpet in a thin, dirty stripe. Ana sleeps on the bed, turned toward the wall, her breathing steady enough that I count it without thinking. One hand is tucked under her face, the other curled near her chest like she’s holding something that might be taken.
I don’t lie down. Night makes people bold. It also strips away noise. What’s left is easier to see.
I sit in the chair by the window and crack the curtain just enough to watch. Streetlights glow dully against wet pavement. Cars come and go, some hotel, some not. Past the lot, I clock the prefab structures where staff sleep between shifts. My eyes mark movements, and my mind keeps count.
The false text keeps replaying in my head.Come home. Now. It was short and familiar, but typed by the wrong hands.
Ana didn’t write it. Whoever sent it knew how I read urgency. They also knew which channel I trusted.
I frown, the pieces rearranging. Of the three people I trust, I booked the last residence through one. His sister’s summerhouse, empty, safe, off-grid. He’s never drawn attention before. But neighbors? Someone saw us move in. Someone curious, the kind who watches. Faces that watched too long, the ones that looked away too fast.
I pull out my burner and don’t look at the screen yet. I listen first. The building hums. Pipes shift in the walls. An elevator three floors down. A door closing somewhere. No one stops outside our door.
I check the phone. No new pings. That doesn’t calm me. If it had been me before, I would’ve already called Yuri. Then Pavel. Then Oleg. Three different lines, three different circles. Yuri watches wires. Pavel watches people. Oleg watches money. Within this circle, lies don’t breathe long.
I don’t call them yet.
Because someone is inside the pipes. The message didn’t arrive late. It didn’t reroute. It didn’t fall back to the secondary path. It came through the primary relay. That means the relay isn’t private anymore. That means someone above street level is watching the infrastructure itself, not just the men using it. The cafe wasn’t unlucky. It was chosen. And the burner wasn’t discovered. It was matched.
I close my eyes and rebuild the day.
Mikhail walks in like he’s early, not bold. Orders for her without asking. Knows the table. Knows the time. Knows I won’t be there.
That only works if someone tells him where I am not.
I unlock a second phone, older, heavier. No contacts saved. I dial from memory. Yuri answers on the third ring. No hello.
“Someone spoofed Ana,” I say. “Used my trusted line.”
“How fast?” he asks.
“Real time.”
He exhales once. “That’s possession more than spoofing.”
