Page 77 of Bratva Bride
I grabbed the phone with a hand that shook—not from fear but from frustrated arousal—and accepted the video call that would destroy our paradise.
Dmitry's face filled the screen, and I knew before he spoke a word that our week in Eden was over.
Dmitry looked like death warmed over and served cold. Blood traced a path from his temple to his jaw, already drying to rust-brown in the dust that covered him head to toe. Behind him, I could see smoke and emergency lights, hear sirens wailing like grief given voice.
"Another bomb," he said without preamble, his voice rough from smoke or screaming or both. "Brooklyn waterfront. Our construction site in Red Hook."
The words hit like ice water on exposed nerves, shocking every system into hypervigilance. My body was still hard, still aching from Anya's interrupted attention, but my brain shifted immediately into crisis mode. The husband who'd been about to come in his wife's mouth evaporated, replaced by the strategist who'd kept the Volkov empire profitable through two decades of blood and chaos.
I was already moving, pulling on yesterday's linen pants with one hand while holding the phone with the other. Behind me, I could hear Anya scrambling for clothes, but I couldn't focus on that now. Couldn't think about how she'd looked between my thighs, couldn't process what this interruption meant for us.
"Casualties?" I barked, yanking a shirt over my head.
"Six confirmed dead." Dmitry's jaw clenched, that tell he'd never been able to suppress. "Three critical, might not make it through the hour. Could've been worse—bomb went off during shift change instead of peak hours."
Shift change. My brain latched onto that detail, turned it over, examined angles. "Whose crews?"
"That's the fucking problem." He turned the phone, showing me the devastation behind him. Twisted metal, concrete turned to dust, construction equipment scattered like broken toys. "Both. Three of ours, three Morozov. The ones in critical are mixed too—two ours, one theirs."
The implications crashed over me in waves. The marriage treaty was supposed to prevent exactly this. Our crews working the same sites, sharing contracts, proving the alliance was profitable for everyone. And someone had targeted that precise symbol of cooperation.
"Fingerprints?" I asked, though I already knew the answer.
"Nothing definitive yet, but Ivan—" Dmitry's expression darkened further. "The bombs have the same signature as the restaurant bombing."
My tablet was already in my hands, screens multiplying as I pulled up every feed I could access. News helicopters circling the devastation. NYPD press conferences. Our own security cameras from adjacent properties. The data flooded in faster than even my brain could process, but patterns were already emerging.
"Where's Alexei?" I asked, fingers flying across the tablet screen, pulling up financial records, checking our exposure, calculating cleanup costs.
"Here," my oldest brother's voice came through as Dmitry adjusted the phone to include him in frame. Alexei looked like I'd never seen him—his perfect control cracked just enough to show the fury underneath. "The Kozlovs. Has to be. They're the only family with enough motivation to destabilize the peace."
"Agreed," I said, my mind already running probability matrices. "If they can prove the Volkov-Morozov alliance is worthless, they can make a play for territory. Classicdestabilization tactics—make the treaty look weak, force us to turn on each other, sweep in to claim what's left."
"Except we're not turning on each other," Alexei said, but something in his tone made my stomach clench. "Not yet."
"What aren't you telling me?"
The pause stretched too long. In the background, I could hear Anya zipping suitcases, the soft sound of her talking to Marina and Peanut as she packed them. My wife, preparing for disaster with stuffed animals. The contrast made my chest tight.
"Viktor's already at the compound," Alexei finally said. "He arrived twenty minutes after the explosion. Says it's for 'unified response,' but Ivan—he brought soldiers. His personal guard. Armed."
My blood went cold. Viktor Morozov didn't travel with armies unless he expected war.
"He's going to blame us," I said, the words tasting like ash. "Claim we failed to protect his people."
"Or worse." Alexei's expression was granite. "He'll claim the marriage failed to secure peace, which voids the treaty entirely. He also says he wants proof that the marriage has been consummated, too. He has reason to believe otherwise."
I felt my blood start to boil.
"We need you back here," Alexei continued, and it wasn't a request. The Pakhan was giving orders now, not my brother. "Both of you. The Council is meeting tomorrow morning. Full assembly—all five families. If we're going to prevent war, we need unified front."
"Viktor won't let Anya stand with us," I said, already knowing how this would play. "He'll want her back under his control. Claim she needs protection we clearly can't provide."
"Then you'd better figure out how to prevent that," Alexei said coldly. "Because if Viktor reclaims his daughter, the treaty dissolves. And if the treaty dissolves—"
"War," I finished. "Full-scale bratva war in New York."
Dmitry leaned back into frame, his expression grim. "Sergei's already got the jet fueled and ready. You can be airborne within the hour."
