"The property dispute?"
"Settled. Petrov saw reason after we had a conversation."
The word "conversation" sounds ominous. I see the young man swallow hard.
"The Italians want to renegotiate the Brooklyn arrangement."
"Tell them no. They had their chance. If they push harder, I'll push back."
Not a threat. A promise.
I watch faces as men interact with Lev. Some show respect—bowing heads slightly, keeping their voices deferential. Others show fear—stammering, unable to maintain eye contact, and even seem relieved when he dismisses them.
These are dangerous men. I can see it in the scars some carry, in how they move like violence is muscle memory, in the cold calculation behind their eyes.
And they're all terrified of him.
At one point, a man gets dragged past our section—literally dragged, two huge enforcers holding his arms while he begs in Russian. Blood streams from his nose. His expensive suit is torn.
"Please, please, I can explain—"
They haul him past the VIP area, toward a back door marked PRIVATE. The music swallows his protests.
No one in our section even looks up. Like this is normal. Expected.
I stare after him, heart pounding.
"Don't worry about it." Lev leans close, lips against my ear. "Just business being handled."
Business. Right.
I watch them disappear through the door, and my imagination fills in what "handled" means. The soundproofed rooms. The tools. The screams no one will hear.
My stomach flips—terror and something darker I don't want to examine.
A woman in a barely-there dress delivers bottle service to our section. She pours with practiced grace, but I see how her hands shake slightly when she gets to Lev. How she won't meet his eyes.
Even the staff are afraid.
Downstairs, the dancing has devolved into something more primal. Couples grinding against each other, hands everywhere, some barely clothed. In one corner, I see a man push a woman against the wall and kiss her aggressively while his hand slides under her dress. She doesn't push him away. Just lets him.
In another section, three people are doing something that definitely constitutes public indecency.
No one stops them. No one cares.
This is the Bratva world. Money and power and violence and sex all tangled together until you can't tell where one ends and another begins.
And I'm sitting in the VIP section, Lev's hand on my thigh, watching it all like I belong here.
The thought makes my chest tight.
Because part of me—some sick, twisted part—is drawn to this. To the danger. To watching Lev command absolute loyalty. To seeing this world that exists in the shadows.
But another part—the part that remembers I'm supposed to be spying, that Ethan is being tortured, that I'm going to get Lev killed—is screaming that this is wrong.
That I don't belong here.
That I'm playing a game I don't understand.
