Page 23 of The Bratva's Secret Baby

He walked to the sofa across from my desk and sat on it. “Take a guess.”

I frowned. “Don’t play jokes with me.”

“No jokes, boss. From what I found out, he only got this far thanks to your sweet littleRoza.She’s responsible for this mess, yet you did let her go.”

My whiskey scorched down my throat at the mention of her name. “She stopped sticking her nose around The Circle six years ago. She wasn’t even in town.”

“She did,” Fyodor agreed, stretching his arms out on the armrest of the sofa. “But not before investigating us and handing that evidence to Kendrick. The gray-haired bastard kept everything to himself, waiting for the right moment to strike, and he seems to think that moment is now.”

Venom was etched in his voice the way he talked about Rosanne. Fyodor, despite his mouthful of shortcomings, had a fierce loyalty to The Circle and me. The fact that he thought I’d become softer since my encounter with Rosanne also heightened his intense dislike for her.

I thought long and hard. Rosanne left the city a few weeks after we saw each other at the Varkov Mansion, and she’d not stepped a foot into Manhattan ever since. There was no way she was still in contact with the cops. She’d promised me she wouldn’t if I let her go.

Rosanne was smart, she wouldn’t do something foolish like going behind my back and breaking our agreement.

Rosanne was fierce and stubborn, but she wasn’t stupid.

Still, I had to be sure how much evidence Kendrick—or whatever his name was—had against The Circle. And there was only one way to do that.

“What should I do, boss?” Fyodor asked.

I poured myself another fingerful of whiskey, slurped it down in one go, and slammed my glass down on the desk, fixing my gaze on Fyodor. “Find her.”

Chapter Ten

Rosanne

I walked out into the blistering sun, leaving the bustle and hustle of the courtroom behind me.

This morning, like every other morning for the past years, I’d won a court case. A sense of relief bubbled in my chest, but it didn’t do a thing to dissipate the feeling of discontent that had knotted deep inside my stomach.

I’d wanted to become a lawyer no doubt, but only after I’d gotten justice for my brother. That had been the only reason I kept living after my brother was killed, and it broke my heart that I could no longer do that.

Damien hadn’t just taken my brother from me; he’d taken away the only reason I had to keep on living. In return, he’d given me my daughter. That was the reason I really couldn’t bring myself to hate him despite all that he’d done.

Anyway, this courtroom was my life now, and being the best mother to Kaity was my dream. I wouldn’t swap it for anything else.

I shielded my face with the back of my palm to save my skin from the blazing ball in the sky, and clutching my briefcase with my other hand, I scurried in the direction of the parking lot.

I’d barely made it halfway through when I collided with a wall of muscles. My briefcase slipped from my hand and thudded to the floor from the impact.

“Are you hurt?”

I recognized the voice, and when I tilted my chin up, the man I’d collided with was Paul Lark, a lawyer from a rival law firm.

He bent over and picked up my briefcase. Dusting it off, before he handed it back.

“Good morning, Rosanne.” He had a boyish grin and green eyes that sparkled when he smiled. “I’m sorry for the collision, I didn’t see you coming.”

I waved him off. “It’s fine. I wasn’t paying attention either.”

Despite the competition between our respective law firms, Paul and I were good friends. I’d met him during one of my court cases, and ironically, he’d been the defendant’s lawyer.

After two hours of battling each other in the courtroom, he’d surprisingly walked up to me and asked me out for a drink. Our friendship blossomed ever since, and it was beautiful having him around since I didn’t have any other friends.

“How was the battle today?”

The battlewas our secret code for defending our respective clients in the courtroom.

---