Page 69 of Obsessed Bratva Daddy
The hallway felt shorter than usual. Her grip was warm and a little tight, and I could feel her pulse jumping in her thumb. She was running on something, and it was not fear, and it was not coffee, and the part of me that always read a room read her like a folded letter.
The meeting room door stood open. Alek had taken the head of the long table, his eyepatch dark over the left side, the working blue right eye flicking up the second we crossed the threshold. Mikhail had not sat down yet. He leaned a hip against the back of his usual chair, sleeves rolled, one hand wrapped around a glass of water he had clearly forgotten he was holding. Ivan was already seated, a tablet in front of him, his refrigerator shoulders making the chair look like furniture built for a smaller man.
Three heads tracked us. Three sets of eyes ran the line from my face down to my hand and the smaller hand laced through it.
Mikhail's eyebrows went up first. He was always the fastest with his face.
Chloe did not slow. She let go of me three steps into the room, planted herself at the foot of the table, and went.
"I caught Pyotr on the phone before dawn, around the back of one of the outbuildings on the grounds," she said. "He did not see me. He was speaking English the whole time. He said the brothers had come back near midnight, both walking, both carrying marks. He said you do not suspect him. Not a glance, not a question. He said Mikhail is blaming a leak from the office side."
She took one breath. Then she kept going.
"He said the recon last night went the way the man on the other end wanted. Bruised, not buried. He said they can move on the rest whenever that man says the word. The man on the other end he called Tomasz. The call ended with one word from Pyotr. Understood."
Mikhail had stopped pretending to hold a glass. He set it down without looking.
"After he hung up," she said, "I stepped onto the gravel loud enough for him to hear me coming, and I called his name from a polite distance like I had just come out for the air. I thanked him for yesterday with my ankle. I apologized for how you handled him. He warmed up. He stopped watching me like I might be a threat. I stepped in close and kissed his cheek like a sister would. While my face was at his I lifted his phone out of the right pocket of his coat. It is in my coat now. The screen is locked but it is warm and it is recent."
Silence. The kind three brothers make when they are simultaneously impressed and recalculating.
I opened my mouth. The smart thing came up. The cold thing. The strategic thing, even. None of those were what came out.
"Wait. You kissed him on the cheek?"
Her head whipped toward me so fast her ponytail snapped.
"That is not the point, Daniil. Is that really all you took from what I just told you?"
She was glaring. She was also half smiling at the corner of her mouth, the way she did when she could not decide between hitting me and forgiving me in the same second. My jaw tightened. I wanted to say something. I did not know what yet, but I was going to say it.
Alek did not let me.
"Give the phone to Ivan." His voice did not lift. It never had to. "Mikhail, take your men and bring that asshole in. Do not kill him yet." A small beat, just long enough to be deliberate. "Daniil." Another beat. "This is not the time to be possessive."
The blood in my face did something stupid. I did not show it. I gave my brother a short nod, because the alternative was making a worse fool of myself in front of the same audience.
Chloe slid the phone from her coat pocket and crossed to Ivan. She set it down beside his tablet like a waitress laying out a plate.
"I'll go keep Rhea clear of the chaos," she said, half to the room, half to the wall.
She turned for the door. I caught her hand before she reached it. Quick. Not rough. My fingers closed around hers and stopped her just outside the line of the doorway, where my brothers could pretend not to see and would absolutely see.
"We talk later."
She bit her lip. Her eyes had that wet shine they got when she was trying not to laugh in a serious room.
"Do your job first."
Then she was gone. The hall swallowed the small shape of her, and I stood there one second too long with my hand still half curled, as if it had not yet been told.
When I turned back, Mikhail was studying the ceiling. Ivan was studying the phone. Alek was studying me with the patience of a man who had seen this exact play before and had a comment loaded but was choosing mercy.
I walked back to the table.
Ivan already had the phone in his palm. He hit the side button. The lock screen lit a faint blue across his face.
"No biometric reset," he said. "He set the cheap pattern lock. Give me thirty seconds."
