Page 11 of Bratva Daddy
I could see it so clearly—a whole life built on nights like this. Using my useless art history degree to identify valuable pieces for auction. Using my practiced social smile to extract money from people who had too much of it. Using every skill my father had accidentally taught me about navigating Manhattan's power structures, but for something that mattered.
A couple passed me, huddled together against the wind, and the woman laughed at something the man whispered. The soundechoed off the buildings, and I found myself smiling too. When was the last time I'd laughed like that? Really laughed, not the polite titter expected at charity lunches?
Tonight. Tonight I'd laughed when Marcus Chen had hugged me after his painting sold, when David had called my auction "fucking brilliant" before catching himself and apologizing for his language, when Mrs. Chen-Williams had accidentally bid against herself in enthusiasm for the cooking class.
My mother would have loved it. That thought came with the usual ache but also something else—pride, maybe. She'd died when I was three, leaving behind more questions than memories, but I knew she'd cared about real things. The margin notes in her college books talked about justice, equality, the responsibility of privilege. She'd have understood what tonight meant.
The city hummed around me as I walked—sirens in the distance, music spilling from a bar's open door, the constant underlying rhythm of eight million people living their lives. For once, I felt like part of it instead of separate from it.
I passed the Carlyle, where a doorman I recognized nodded politely. Passed the construction site where a new boutique was rising from the bones of an old one. Passed the corner where I sometimes saw the same homeless veteran, though not tonight—hopefully somewhere warm.
My phone buzzed. My father, probably, summoning me to some political breakfast tomorrow where I'd sit silently while he made deals that destroyed lives. But I didn't check. I’d sold him a lie about meeting some girlfriends. Tomorrow I could return to being his invisible daughter. Tonight I was someone else entirely.
The champagne was wearing off slightly, replaced by a different kind of intoxication. Possibility. Purpose. The radical idea that I might actually matter.
Two blocks from the gallery, the city changed. The cheerful spill of restaurant light gave way to the darkened facades of boutiques that wouldn't open until morning. Tiffany's security lights cast strange shadows, and the sidewalk traffic thinned to almost nothing. My heels echoed too loudly against concrete, the sound bouncing off buildings that suddenly felt like walls instead of familiar landmarks.
I passed the entrance to a boutique I'd browsed just last week—Carlisle & Sons, British imports, overpriced cashmere that all looked the same. The alcove of their doorway was deep, designed to display window arrangements that were currently hidden behind steel security gates. Shadow pooled there, thick enough to hide anything.
The men emerged like they'd been waiting specifically for me.
Two of them, moving with the kind of coordinated precision that meant training, not coincidence. The first one stepped directly into my path—tall, broad-shouldered, with cheekbones that could only be Eastern European. His suit was expensive, charcoal wool that had been tailored to accommodate the gun I could see the outline of beneath his left arm. The second man circled behind me before I could even process the first, smaller but moving with an economy that suggested he could hurt me efficiently if necessary.
"Miss Petrov." The first man's voice was polite, accented—Russian, definitely Russian—with that particular formality that made it sound like he was picking up a package rather than accosting a woman on Fifth Avenue. "Please come with us. No one needs to be hurt."
The champagne evaporated from my bloodstream instantly, replaced by ice water and adrenaline. My mind catalogued exits—blocked ahead, blocked behind, boutique doorway too shallow to hide in, street too empty of witnesses. But even through the fear, something else flared—irritation at that name.
"It's Albright, actually," I heard myself say, voice steadier than my hands. "Miss Albright."
The man's expression shifted slightly—surprise, maybe, that I was correcting him about my name while being kidnapped. "Miss Albright, then. Very good. You will come with us."
"I don't know what you want but my father—" I started, but the words felt stupid even as I said them. Of course I knew what this was about. You didn't grow up as Viktor Petrov's daughter without understanding that his world had consequences. The bribes, the deals, the enemies he collected like my mother had collected first editions.
"Have no fear, your father knows exactly what this is about," the first man said, confirming my worst suspicions. His hand moved to his pocket, producing a key fob that chirped somewhere behind me. A black SUV, probably, with tinted windows and plates that wouldn't trace back to anyone.
I tried to step backward, an instinctive retreat from the first man's reaching hand, but hit the solid wall of the second man's chest. He smelled like cigarettes and leather, and his hands came up to grip my upper arms—not painful but absolutely immovable.
"No need to make this difficult," the second man said, his accent thicker, less polished. "We have orders."
Orders. Like I was a package to be delivered, a message to be sent. My mind raced through every self-defense class my father had insisted on, every lecture about situational awareness and escape routes. But those lessons had been for random street crime, not professional kidnapping by men who moved like they'd done this before.
"People will notice I'm missing," I said, hating how my voice cracked slightly. "There were hundreds of people at that auction. They saw me leave. They'll—"
"They'll assume you went home," the first man interrupted, almost gently. "Young woman, bit too much champagne, called it an early night. Very reasonable."
He was right. Everyone at the gallery had seen me drinking, celebrating, getting looser as the night went on. If I disappeared, they'd assume I'd taken my usual car service home. Mrs. Brown would assume I'd decided to stay at a friend's place—I'd texted her not to wait up. My father barely knew I existed. We could go days without seeing each other in that massive penthouse.
I could vanish right here on Fifth Avenue, and no one would notice for days.
"My father won't pay," I said desperately. "Whatever you think I'm worth to him, you're wrong. He doesn't—we're not close. I'm not valuable to him."
The first man's mouth curved in what might have been sympathy if I believed he was capable of it. "You underestimate yourself, Miss Albright. You are Viktor Petrov's only daughter. His weakness. His pressure point."
Pressure point. The irony of it almost made me laugh. After twenty-three years of being invisible to him, I'd finally found a way to matter. Too bad it involved being kidnapped by Russian criminals who looked like they professionally disappeared people.
If I got in that vehicle, I'd disappear into whatever world my father's corruption had created. End up in some warehouse, some basement, some place where pressure points got pressed until they broke.
"He's expecting this?" I said, the realization hitting me with horrible clarity.
