Page 55 of Bratva Daddy
The casualness of it, the way he threw his dead wife under the bus to save himself, made my vision edge red. But this wasn't my rage to own. This was Clara's, and she needed to feel it fully.
"Two weeks ago, Clara disappeared. We believe she may have left with someone taking advantage of her vulnerable state—perhaps someone she met online or at one of her charity events who recognized her fragility and exploited it. She's likely being manipulated, controlled, fed lies that reinforce her delusions about me."
Viktor paused, dabbing at his eyes with a handkerchief, the gesture so obviously rehearsed it was insulting.
"If anyone has information about Clara's whereabouts, please understand—she's not well. She needs professional help, not enablement of her fantasies. I've been in contact with several excellent psychiatric facilities that specialize in hereditary mental illness. Once we find her, she'll receive the best care money can buy."
The threat was clear—if Clara surfaced, she'd be institutionalized. Anything she said would be dismissed as delusion. Viktor had just painted her as too crazy to be believed, too sick to be trusted with her own narrative.
"Additionally," Viktor continued, and his tone shifted to something more businesslike, "despite my personal troubles, I remain committed to this city's development. I'm pleased to announce a new partnership with the Kozlov Foundation for urban renewal. Together, we'll be redeveloping several key areas of Brooklyn and Queens, bringing jobs and prosperity to neighborhoods that desperately need investment."
I felt the moment Clara understood. Her entire body went rigid, coffee sloshing dangerously close to the mug's rim. The Kozlovs—our enemies, the family who'd been trying to destroy us for a decade. Her father had just publicly aligned himselfwith them, using his daughter's disappearance as cover for the betrayal.
"Furthermore," Viktor added, like an afterthought, "due to Clara's absence and uncertain mental state, I've had to make changes to our upcoming charity gala. My assistant, Melissa Crawford, will be taking over Clara's responsibilities. She's young but capable, and I'm confident she'll represent our family values admirably."
The screen showed a brief clip of Viktor with a young woman—early twenties, blonde, wearing a dress was carefully calculated to bejustrevealing enough. She stood too close to Viktor, her hand on his arm with casual intimacy that screamed they were fucking.
Ivan closed the laptop with a decisive click.
The silence stretched, taut as piano wire. Clara set her mug down with deliberate care, her movements so controlled they looked robotic.
"He's inoculating himself," Ivan said, adjusting his glasses in that way that meant he was processing data. "If Clara comes forward now, anything she says will be dismissed as mental illness. Any accusations about his corruption, his connections to organized crime—all delusions. He's also aligned with the Kozlovs publicly, making any move against them look like Volkov aggression rather than justified retaliation."
"It's actually brilliant," Clara said, her voice so calm it raised the hair on my neck. "He's finally found a use for me. Twenty-three years of being furniture, and now I get to be his scapegoat."
The mug left her hand before I could register the movement, coffee exploding against my office wall in a shower of ceramic and caffeine. The sound it made—sharp, final—seemed to break something loose in Clara's chest.
"Troubled," she said her voice suddenly louder. "Fragile." Her voice climbed with each word. "Mental illness."
She grabbed a paperweight from my desk—a heavy crystal thing Dmitry had given me for Christmas—and launched it at the wall. It left a dent in the plaster before thudding to the floor.
"Twenty-three years," she said, moving to my bookshelf with purpose that made Ivan step strategically backward. "Twenty-three fucking years of being invisible, of being nothing, of sitting at his table like a decorative vase while he planned his crimes."
A first edition Tolstoy went flying. Then Dostoyevsky. Then the entire Russian literature section I'd carefully collected over fifteen years.
"And now—NOW—suddenly I'm the family embarrassment he can't stop talking about?" She grabbed a vase, one of the few decorative pieces I actually owned, and held it like she was considering its weight. "Now I'm important enough to hold press conferences about?"
The vase shattered against the wall, and I had to admire her aim—she was creating a very specific destruction path that avoided anything truly valuable. Even in rage, she was calculating.
"My mother," she said, voice breaking on the word, "had postpartum depression. Post. Partum. Depression. One in seven women get it. She went to therapy, took medication, did everything the doctors said. She was getting better—I remember her getting better."
Another book flew, pages fluttering like dying birds.
"She used to read to me," Clara continued, tears streaming down her face now but her aim staying true. "Every night, even when the chemo made her so tired she could barely keep her eyes open. She'd prop herself up in bed and read until I fell asleep. That's not mental illness—that's love. That's being a mother despite everything trying to kill you."
A leather-bound journal joined the casualties. Ivan dodged it with minimal movement, his expression showing something Irarely saw—respect. My brother appreciated fighters, and Clara was fighting with everything she had.
"The cancer killed her," she screamed, another book launching from her hands. "The fucking cancer that ate her from the inside while my father complained about medical bills. Not mental illness, not delusions, not inappropriate attachments to strange men. Cancer. But that doesn't fit his narrative, does it?"
She spun to face us, chest heaving, and even tear-stained and furious, she was magnificent.
"You know what the worst part is?" she asked, voice dropping to something more dangerous than screams. "I gave him everything. My compliance, my silence, my perfect behavior. I was the daughter he wanted—pretty, quiet, useful when needed, invisible when not."
She laughed, but it had edges that could cut glass.
"I sat at those dinners for years. Years. Listening to him discuss bribes and territory deals and which judges he owned. I know about the commissioner he pays monthly. I know about the construction companies he strong-arms for kickbacks. I know about the safety violations he overlooks for the right price."
Another book, but halfhearted now, the rage starting to exhaust itself.
