Page 56 of Bratva Daddy
"I have enough information to bury him ten times over," she said, voice hollow. "Names, dates, amounts, recorded conversations I wasn't supposed to hear. I could have destroyed him whenever I wanted. But I didn't, because despite everything, he was my father."
She picked up another paperweight, then set it down with shaking hands.
"And his repayment? Calling me crazy on live television and replacing me with someone who's barely out of college." Her laugh turned bitter. "Melissa Crawford. I looked her up once,curious why he'd hired her. Graduated from Fordham last year, no relevant experience, but she photographs well and knows how to smile while powerful men talk."
The last book dropped from her hands rather than flew.
"He's replaced me at the gala," she said, quieter now. "The event I've organized for three years, where I've cultivated every donor, negotiated every sponsorship. She'll stand where I stood, charm the people I charmed, and everyone will pretend they don't notice she's fucking him."
She turned to face us fully, and the emptiness in her eyes was worse than the rage.
"I was never his daughter. I was a prop, an asset, something to display at appropriate times. And now that I'm gone, he found a better model."
The words hung in the air like smoke from a fired gun.
I crossed to her before she could throw anything else or collapse entirely. My arms went around her, pulling her against my chest, and she resisted for exactly two seconds before sagging into me.
"We're going to destroy him," I promised, speaking into her hair. "Not with violence—that's too quick, too merciful. We're going to dismantle his life piece by piece, legally and publicly, until he wishes I'd just put a bullet in his head."
She shuddered against me, hands fisting in my shirt.
"But we do it smart," I continued, feeling Ivan's approving gaze. "Clean. Using the legal system he's corrupted, turning his own weapons against him. Every bribe he's paid, every deal he's made, every law he's broken—we're going to document it all and deliver it wrapped in a bow to the FBI."
"The FBI won't care," she mumbled against my chest. "He owns too many people."
"The Southern District of New York doesn't play games," Ivan said from behind us, voice carrying that particular tone thatmeant he was already planning. "They took down Gotti. They'll salivate over a corrupt deputy mayor with ties to both the bratva and the Kozlovs."
Clara pulled back enough to look at me, mascara streaking down her cheeks in black rivers.
"I want him to suffer," she said quietly. "Not physically. I want him to lose everything that matters to him—his position, his reputation, his freedom. I want him to know what it feels like to be powerless."
I wiped a tear from her cheek with my thumb, gentle despite the violence we were discussing.
"Then that's what you'll have," I promised. "But we do it my way. Strategic. Calculated. Devastating."
She nodded, then looked at the destruction she'd wrought on my office. Books scattered everywhere, coffee dripping down the wall, crystal fragments catching the light like fallen stars.
"I'll clean this up," she offered weakly.
"No," I said firmly. "You needed to break things. Sometimes rage needs outlet, and better my office than keeping it poisoned inside you. Every rule has an exception."
Ivan moved closer, stepping carefully over the book massacre. "You said you have information. Records of conversations?"
Clara nodded, steadier now that we were talking strategy instead of emotion. "Everything. I might have been invisible, but I listened to everything. Remembered everything."
"Good," Ivan said, and coming from him, it was high praise. "We'll need it all. Every detail, every conversation, every crime you witnessed."
"I can do that," she said, and there was steel in her voice now, forged in the fire of betrayal. "I can bury him."
"We," I corrected, tilting her chin up. "We bury him. You're not alone in this anymore."
Theshowerstartedrunningdown the hall—Clara needing to wash off the rage and tears—while Ivan and I retreated to what remained of my office. Books lay scattered like casualties, coffee still dripped down the wall, and crystal fragments crunched under our feet. Ivan studied the destruction pattern with the same intensity he brought to financial spreadsheets.
"Dmitry needs to hear this," I said, pulling out my phone.
Our middle brother answered on the second ring, engine noise in the background telling me he was at the warehouse. "Tell me someone's dead," he said by way of greeting. "I'm bored, and the Kozlov shipment isn't until Thursday."
"Viktor Petrov held a press conference," I said, putting him on speaker. "Called Clara mentally ill, aligned publicly with the Kozlovs."
