Page 65 of Bratva Daddy
Chapter 13
Alexei
Ivan'slaptopcastbluelight across his face, making him look even more corpse-like than usual as he scrolled through months of surveillance footage. The timestamp in the corner read 3:47 AM, three hours since we'd wrapped the last Kozlov body in plastic, and my brother hadn't blinked once. His fingers moved across the trackpad with surgical precision, pulling up traffic camera feeds, ATM footage, security recordings from businesses I didn't know he had access to.
"Here," he said, freezing a frame from six weeks ago. A white van, different from today's but with the same tinted windows, parked across from my building. "And here." Another frame, three weeks back, a man in a baseball cap walking past the entrance four times in an hour. "Here." A delivery truck that stayed forty minutes for a five-minute job.
The pattern emerged like a photograph developing in solution—gradual, inevitable, undeniable. The Kozlovs hadn't just attacked today. They'd been circling for months, patient aswolves, learning my routines, mapping my defenses, waiting for the perfect moment to strike.
"No mole," Ivan confirmed, adjusting his glasses in that way that meant he'd triple-checked his conclusion. "No communication intercepts, no unusual financial transfers to our people, no meetings that shouldn't have happened. They've been watching since before Clara arrived, waiting for leverage."
Relief and fury twisted through my chest in equal measure. My men hadn't betrayed me—that was worth something. But the Kozlovs had been studying me like a specimen, and I'd been too focused on Clara to notice. When she hadn't appeared at public events after the auction, when whispers started about her disappearance, they'd connected dots I hadn't realized I'd left visible.
"They saw opportunity," Dmitry said from across my desk, still wearing someone else's blood on his knuckles. "The girl made you vulnerable."
"The girl made me focused," I corrected, though part of me knew he was right. Clara had changed my patterns, disrupted my careful routines. But she'd also given me something worth protecting beyond territory and profit margins.
"Regardless," Ivan continued, pulling up more footage, "the penthouse is compromised. They know entry points, security rotations, response times. You can't stay."
"The Brooklyn safe house?" Dmitry suggested, but I was already shaking my head.
"Too obvious. First place they'd check." I stood, decision crystallizing. "I have another location."
Both brothers looked at me with surprise. Even in our world of secrets, we didn't keep operational details from each other. Usually.
"Insurance," I explained. "Bought it five years ago through a shell company that doesn't trace back to us. Renovated it myself,off the books. No one knows about it except the contractor, and he's been dead three years."
"Paranoid," Dmitry observed, but there was approval in it.
"Prepared," I countered. "We move tonight. Take only essentials. Everything else stays as distraction."
"What about the girl?" Dmitry asked, and I noticed his tone had shifted since yesterday. Not dismissive anymore, but genuinely curious. Watching Clara stand calm while I washed blood off my hands had earned something from him—not quite respect, but its younger cousin.
Before I could answer, Clara appeared in the doorway, looking tired, but alert. One of my shirts hung to her mid-thigh, black leggings underneath, her hair pulled back in a messy bun that made her look incredibly pretty. But her eyes were sharp, focused, carrying that particular intensity that meant her mind had been working.
"I remembered something," she said, not asking permission to enter, just claiming space in my office like she belonged there. "About my father. Something that might help."
Six weeks ago, I’d watched her from afar, viewing her as a beautiful asset in a blue dress. Three weeks ago, she'd been a captive learning rules. Now she stood in my operational center at four in the morning, inserting herself into bratva business without hesitation. She really was something.
"Tell us," I said, and made a decision that would have been unthinkable a month ago. I pulled her onto my lap despite my brothers' presence, settling her against my chest like it was the most natural thing in the world.
She tensed for a heartbeat—surprise at the public display—then relaxed into me, understanding this for what it was. Not just affection but declaration. She wasn't just mine in private anymore. She was mine in front of my brothers, my lieutenants, my entire world.
"Three months ago, my father had dinner with Sergei Kozlov and the harbor commissioner. Private room at The Russian Tea Room. That set off alarm bells, because my father hates authentic cuisine."
Ivan's fingers were already flying across his keyboard, pulling up reservation records I didn't want to know how he accessed.
"He took me, of course. Some ‘brainless’ eye-candy for the big bad men. They sat in the back room, the one with the Firebird mural," she continued. "Commissioner Bradley arrived twenty minutes late, sweating through his suit. Kept apologizing, saying traffic was bad, but Kozlov just stared at him until he stopped talking."
"Power play," Dmitry observed. "Making the commissioner wait, then making him squirm."
Clara nodded against my chest. "They ordered vodka first. My father pretended to like it—he's never developed a taste for anything stronger than champagne, but he matched them shot for shot. By the third round, they stopped talking in code."
Ivan's fingers paused on his keyboard. "Direct discussion of criminal activity?"
"Kozlov had the room swept for bugs first," Clara said. "Made a show of it, actually. Said trust was earned through paranoia. My father laughed like it was a joke, but his hand shook when he poured the next round."
She shifted slightly, getting more comfortable, and I tightened my arm around her waist.
