Page 12 of Bratva Bride
My father's driver. Which meant my father was already outside, impatient, checking his phone while he waited for his commodity to present herself.
I took one last look at my room. The place I'd spent twenty-six years learning to be useful. Bookshelves lined three walls—seven languages worth of literature I'd absorbed like oxygen. Russian classics my grandmother had shipped from Moscow. French poetry I'd memorized to keep my mind sharp. German philosophy that made sense of a senseless world. The complete works of Jane Austen, pages soft from reading, margins full of my mother's notes I'd traced with my fingers a thousand times.
For some reason, I had the feeling i’d never see it again.
I walked downstairs on legs that felt disconnected from my body. The marble was cold under my feet—I'd forgotten shoes. Didn't matter. There would be shoes in the car. My father thought of everything.
Viktor waited by the black Mercedes SUV, still checking his phone. He looked up when I approached, his pale eyes scanning me with the same assessment he'd use on a profit-and-loss statement. The dress, the hair, the makeup—all meeting specifications. His asset was properly packaged for market.
He nodded once. Approval. The closest thing to affection I'd ever gotten from him.
"Get in."
I climbed into the back seat. The leather was cold despite the morning sun. Two guards flanked me—not Yevgeny or Maksim, they were staying to maintain the regular rotation. These were Viktor's personal security. Ex-military. The kind who'd return fire in a heartbeat and never ask questions.
The door closed with the heavy thunk of German engineering. The locks engaged automatically—electronic, like everything in my father's world. No handles on the inside of the back doors. Another security feature. Another cage.
Through the tinted window, I watched the Morozov estate disappear. The maintenance gate was visible for exactly three seconds as we turned onto the main road.
The SUV turned onto Brighton Beach Avenue, heading toward Manhattan. Toward the Council meeting. Through the tinted glass, Brooklyn blurred past. People walking freely. Choosing their own directions. Taking the subway wherever they wanted. Living lives where they were people instead of property.
The bus to Montreal would leave without Emma Graves. The hostel reservation would go unclaimed. The forged ID would yellow in the air vent, a monument to the person I'd almost become.
I was Anya Morozova, brilliant daughter of Viktor Morozov, worth more as a treaty than as a person.
I was a chess piece. And chess pieces got played.
Chapter 3
Ivan
ThebasementofHolyTrinity Orthodox Church smelled like a strange combination of myrrh and gun oil. The bratva had come to pray for peace while planning for war. I followed Alexei down the narrow stone steps, counting each one. Good for keeping my mind focused while my body wanted to shake apart from the beta-blockers wearing off too early.
The space opened up at the bottom—larger than expected, with vaulted ceilings that belonged to an older New York, when immigrants built churches to remember their heritage. Stone walls sweated condensation. The air tasted metallic, recycled through ancient vents that probably hadn't been cleaned since the Cold War.
The long oak table dominated the center of the room. Polished to mirror brightness, old enough that the wood grain had darkened to near-black. Someone's grandmother had probably prayed at this table once, back when it lived upstairs in the actualchurch. Now it served as neutral ground for men who'd forgotten what prayer meant.
I took my position between Alexei and Dmitry. The chair was hard-backed, uncomfortable, designed to keep everyone alert and slightly aggressive.
Viktor Morozov sat directly across from us. Six feet of polished wood between us. His pale eyes tracked our movement with the same cold calculation I used on him. Silver hair slicked back, gray suit that probably cost more than most people's cars, hands folded on the table with deliberate casualness that fooled no one. His soldiers flanked him—Viktor Chenkov's replacement, a narrow-faced man named Antonov who looked like he enjoyed his work too much, and two others whose names I'd filed away but didn't matter enough to recall.
The Kozlovs occupied the east side of the table. Sergei Kozlov looked like what he was—a barely evolved thug in an expensive suit that couldn't hide the prison tattoos creeping above his collar. His son Mikhail sat beside him, younger version of the same brutality, learning to wear civilization like an ill-fitting coat. They'd brought four soldiers, all of them twitching with the particular energy of men who solved problems with their fists.
The Sokolovs had taken the west position. Old guard bratva, the kind who still remembered when the families cooperated more than they competed. Pavel Sokolov must have been pushing seventy, liver spots on his hands but his eyes still sharp as broken glass. His nephew Andrei represented the next generation—smoother, educated at Columbia, trying to transition the family toward legitimacy while keeping one foot in the old world.
The Besharovs controlled the head of the table, as was their right. They'd been in New York longest, had the deepest roots, commanded the most respect even if not the most territory. Three generations at one table—the old man, his son, hisgrandson. A visual reminder that some empires survived by playing the long game.
Above us, religious iconography watched with golden eyes. Christ Pantocrator dominated the east wall, his painted gaze somehow both merciful and damning. The Virgin of Kazan blessed the west wall, her son in her arms, both of them crowned in gold leaf that caught the fluorescent lights wrong, made their halos look like targeting sights. Lesser saints filled the spaces between—men and women who'd died for their faith, reduced to watching men who killed for profit.
This was consecrated ground. Holy space. The one place in New York where spilling blood violated rules even we wouldn't break. The priests knew what happened down here, of course. Knew their basement hosted treaty negotiations and territory disputes and the careful arithmetic of controlled violence. But they also knew the donation box never emptied, the roof never leaked, and their congregation could walk home at night without fear because even the street gangs knew this was bratva territory.
Mikhail Besharov sat at the table's head like a king holding court. Seventy-three years old but wore it like armor instead of weakness. His suit was charcoal, understated, the kind of expensive that whispered instead of shouted. His hands rested flat on a leather-bound book that everyone in the room recognized—the Code, written in 1947 by the original five families who'd fled Stalin's purges and built an empire in Brooklyn's shadows.
"Four civilians dead," Besharov said without preamble. His Russian accent was thick despite fifty years in America—a deliberate choice, reminding everyone of where we came from, what rules we were supposed to follow. "Two of them children. Federal prosecutors circling like sharks. RICO indictments coming for both families within the week."
He paused, let that sink in. RICO meant asset forfeiture. Meant legitimate businesses frozen. Meant the careful architecture of money laundering and legal fronts we'd spent decades building could collapse in months.
"Maybe all of us," he continued, his voice carrying the particular weight of a man who'd seen empires fall before. "If this continues. If the blood keeps spilling into places it shouldn't. The FBI has task forces. The DEA wants in. Even the fucking ATF is sniffing around because of the bomb's construction."
