Page 104 of Pregnant Bratva Wife
How I wished I could joke around.
But my mind and body were already at war.
“Where are the others?” I asked Gastone.
“The kidnappers will come in from the south,” he said. “But Carlo, Dino, and Dom have the north, east, and west sealed tight.”
Caspian nodded. “Luca and Achille are in the war room. They’ve got comms, visuals, and thermal on everything.”
They’re with Autumn,I thought.Thank God.
She wanted to be involved. She wanted to help. But she was pregnant, and no matter what she said,thiswas where I drew the line. She would be seeing everything through our body cams, hearing everything through our comms. This was the closest she would get to this scene.
“She’s handling it well,” Caspian said, reading my thoughts. “Better than most would.”
“She’s stronger than she looks.”
“She’d have to be to put up with you.”
Despite everything, I smiled.
“Federico,” Gastone whispered after tuning in to his earphone. “The woman is ready.”
I felt my heart begin to race.
We had one shot at this.
A female associate, dressed head to toe like Autumn—wig, blue contacts, clothes, hairstyle,everything—was sitting behind the wheel of one of our black sedans, waiting just over the crest.
She wouldn’t fool anyone up close, but she didn’t need to. She just needed to get them to show their hand.
I had Autumn’s phone and pulled it out. Her wallpaper was a photo of her and Megan, both smiling. I pushed the feeling aside and opened the messaging app.
“I’m here,” I typed to Igor Petrov. “Alone. With the money. Where do I go?”
I hit send.
The bait was out.
The response came almost immediately: “Drive to the front entrance. Slowly.”
I passed the message to our decoy.
“All units on standby,” I murmured into my comm. “Action is about to start.”
Seconds ticked by. The fake Autumn revved the engine.
I tuned in to our associate via the radio. Whispered: “You sure about this?”
She answered back immediately. “Just another day at the office.”
“If anything feels off, you abort immediately. Drive straight past if you have to.”
“Copy that, Boss.”
This wasn’t the plan I wanted. It put someone else at risk. But she was trained. One of our brightest.
Seconds ticked by. The fake Autumn began driving slowly toward the clearing, stopping exactly where I’d told her to. She sat still. Brave.
