Page 73 of The Bratva's Secret Baby
I pick up a tin sword from a rack near the counter, the kind made for children, light and dull-edged. I hand it to Mila without a word. Ana lifts her eyes to me.
“What?” she says, smiling.
“She’s been brave,” I say.
Mila swishes the sword through the air, serious now. “I’ll cut all the bad people,” she announces, pointing it toward the ceiling. “The ones who’ll hurt my mommy.”
A couple near the travel guides smiles. Mila turns and points the sword at me. “And you.”
I raise my hands. “Fair enough.”
She grins and tucks the sword under her arm like it belongs there.
At the counter, the owner wraps the books carefully, adds a small sticker sheet without charging for it, and tells Mila to come back soon. We buy honey candies shaped like bears, a small bag of dried fruit, and a bar of dark chocolate Ana likes.
Back home, Mila doesn’t even take her shoes off properly. She drops onto the rug, opens the coloring book, lines up the crayons by size. The sword is on the floor beside her. Ana checks her temperature and nods.
She goes to the kitchen to warm milk and pour cereal for Mila. I stand in the doorway and watch Mila bend over the page, tongue between her teeth, already lost in the book.
The phone vibrates in my pocket. I don’t answer it inside the house. I step out onto the veranda and close the door behind me.
“Talk,” I say.
Gleb doesn’t waste time. “Two hours,” he says. “That’s all I needed.”
“What did you hear?”
“Enough to know where the pressure’s pointing,” he replies. “Not enough to tell you how it ends.”
I lean against the railing and look out at the street. It’s still. That doesn’t mean nothing is moving.
“And?”
“And the marriage shifted things the way you wanted,” he says. “They’re pissed off, but they’re not scrambling. Which means they’re deciding whether to wait it out or force something small to see the next move.”
I don’t answer.
Gleb doesn’t fill the silence. He lets it sit long enough that I know the next part matters.
“They’re past asking who pulled her out,” he says at last. “That question’s closed.”
“So they’re sure,” I say.
“They’re sure enough to stop pretending otherwise,” he replies. “Now they’re talking about containment. Not punishment. That’s interesting.”
I lean into the railing and look at the street again. A cat slips from one yard to another. Somewhere, a door shuts. Ordinary sounds, and they don’t clear my head.
“How?” I ask.
“With you, once they know, they’ll move slowly,” Gleb says. “You already felt it. Contacts going dull. Access turning polite. Doors that still open but take longer. They’re not cutting you off all at once because that would look like fear. They tighten, then ease off, and see how far you go.”
“And Ana?”
“Marriage doesn’t free her,” he says. “What’s more, they’ve started watching her, trying to figure out who she married. They don’t know for sure, but they’ve got ideas.”
There’s a pause, just long enough.
“She’s not the leverage anymore,” he says. “At least, not the obvious kind.”
