Page 41 of The Bratva's Secret Baby
That’s when I tell him.
He stops mid-motion. Not dramatic. Just still. He doesn’t ask what I mean or who contacted me. He takes one half of the loaf, sets it on his plate, and spreads butter over it with slow strokes, all his focus narrowed down to the knife and the bread.
“I’m going,” I say, because the silence is starting to press on my chest.
He still doesn’t answer. He adds a sausage, takes a big bite, and chews.
I count the seconds between his movements and wish he’d just snap at me. When he falls silent like this, it means he’s already seen where options end. He’s calculating how many bodies it costs to change the outcome.
“You don’t have anything to say?” I ask, making it a dare.
He finishes chewing, wipes his fingers once on the cloth, then looks at me.
“You shouldn’t go alone.”
“I’m not. You’re coming with me.”
Something shifts in his expression, briefly, like I’m not telling him anything new, just proving what he already guessed.
“They didn’t summon me.”
“They summoned me,” I say. “And I don’t belong to them unless you let me.”
That one stays with him. He holds my gaze a beat longer, then nods once.
“All right,” he says. “We go together.”
The letter leads us to a downtown cafe. When we walk in, the man behind the bar doesn’t ask questions. He gives us a look, a slight nod, then jerks his chin toward the back.
The door at the end of the narrow hallway carries just a number, crooked above the frame. Dominik pushes it open, allowing me to enter first. His hand stays on the handle while I step through and take in the room.
A long wooden table runs the length of it, ringed with mismatched chairs. From beneath the floorboards, the muffledclatter of plates and cutlery drifts up. The back stays unseen. The front stays clean. That’s the arrangement.
Dominik lets the handle go and steps in beside me, his fingers brushing the worn leather of the holster slung against his ribs. The room’s empty, lit by a shaded lamp hanging over the table. We look at each other, the pause stretching, when a side door swings open. It’s built to blend into the wall. That’s how we missed it.
Two men in tailored council coats step through the gap. One grabs Dominik, presses a gun to his back, and they march us out without a word.
Outside, we’re shoved into a car where two more men wait, guns up, faces blank as plaster. The driver slaps a blue light onto the hood and punches the car into the city's traffic. He doesn’t ease off the gas, not once, and nobody speaks the entire ten-minute ride.
The building they take us to sits behind a gate that looks unwatched until the men by it come into focus, still as stone. The car rolls to a stop, there’s a short exchange I can’t hear, and the gate opens without a sound.
Inside, the hallways are wide and clean, too still, stripped of art or personal touches, everything arranged to leave no impression at all. I walk beside Dominik, close enough to feel his heat, far enough that no one can say we’re showing anything.
They take us into a room meant for meetings, built around a long table and soft chairs, water set out in identical glasses in front of each seat. Four men are already seated. I recognize them right away.
Viktor Andreyevich sits in the center. Beside him is Mikhail Petrovich Orlov, hands folded on the table, veins raised, nails clean. He watches me the way people watch a problem they expect to solve.
To his right sits his nephew, Sergei, in a Dolce & Gabbana suit that probably cost more than the man who stitched it earns in a year. He doesn’t stand when I enter. He smiles just enough to pass for polite. His eyes drag over my face, down my throat, and back up again like he’s assessing property. He doesn’t hurry. He’s never had to.
Vasiliev Morozov sits there too, and he doesn’t bother hiding what he thinks. His look mocks me before drifting to Dominik. He watches the space between us like it’s something he paid for.
A fifth man stands near the wall with his hands clasped behind his back. Nikolai Petrov. He’s not council, but I’ve seen him at enough dinners before to know he matters. He’s always listening, never speaking unless someone calls his name first. He listens more than he speaks, and when he does, men adjust.
“Ana Markova,” Viktor says, not Ana, not gently. “Thank you for honoring tradition.”
A flicker of approval passes among the men. I’ve given them what they wanted, for now.
“This isn’t an interrogation,” Viktor says, his finger tapping the notepad once. “It’s an accounting.”
