Page 29 of Reckless Bratva Daddy

"I'm still here."

"You're here the way a man's here when he's decided something and hasn't told the room yet." He studied me for a second longer, and whatever he saw settled something in his expression, some private conclusion I wasn't going to get the satisfaction of hearing out loud. "Whatever it is, say it before I have to guess. I hate guessing."

I thought about the easier version of this conversation, the one where I told him I'd handle Kirill quietly and let the rest of it stay exactly where it had always lived, filed under things I did not examine too closely because examining them had never once been required before. I thought about Yuri's four unreturned calls and Elena's dinner in a restaurant too public for a scene, both of them proof that I knew exactly how to end something before it could cost me anything, and proof that neither ending had actually protected me from anything that mattered. It had just made sure I was alone for it.

Nik was still watching me, patient in the specific way he only got when he already suspected the answer and was waiting to see if I'd earn his respect or lose a piece of it.

"Well?" he said.

"Bring her to the weekly meeting," I told Nik, and for three full seconds, the most efficient man I had ever employed had absolutely nothing efficient to say.

15

CORA

Two days after Dmitri asked me, with no more ceremony than a man ordering coffee, to sit in on one of his actual work meetings, I found myself walking into the least romantic room I had ever seen a powerful man occupy, folding table, mismatched chairs, a coffee maker that looked like it had personally survived three administrations. I decided within about four seconds that I liked it more than the penthouse, the restaurant, and the ballroom combined, because a room this unglamorous meant nobody in it was performing for anyone.

"You're early," Dmitri said, looking up from a stack of papers that had nothing to do with flowers or seating charts, at least not yet.

"I'm an event planner. Early is the only setting I have." I set my bag down and took the chair he nodded toward, directly across from Nik, who was watching me with the polite, unreadable patience of a man reserving judgment until the evidence came in. "Where do you want me?"

"Wherever you can be useful."

"Bold strategy, given you don't actually know yet whether I will be."

"I have a guess."

Nik cleared his throat in a way that managed to communicate an entire paragraph of skepticism without a single word, and the man beside him, younger, restless enough in his chair to suggest he'd rather be doing anything requiring motion, grinned at me like I'd just said something worth remembering.

"Luca," he said, extending a hand. "I'm the one who talks in his ear during dinners. I assume he's mentioned me."

"He has. You have opinions about wine lists."

"Strong ones. Correct ones." Luca's grin widened. "I like her already."

"We haven't started the meeting," Nik said.

"I'm allowed to form early impressions. It's a personality trait."

Dmitri did not smile, not with his mouth, but something in his shoulders eased half an inch, and I filed it away with every other small thing he gave me without meaning to. "Let's start with the shipping schedule. Nik."

For the next twenty minutes I sat mostly quiet, taking in more than I contributed, watching the actual machinery of Dmitri's world turn in a way that had nothing to do with warehouses full of secrets and everything to do with the same unglamorous logistics I dealt with every week of my professional life. Trucks came up first, then delivery windows, then a vendor who wanted an extra hour on setup morning that nobody had approved yet. It could have been any planning meeting I'd sat through for the last three years, except for the occasional detail that reminded me exactly whose table I was sitting at, a mention of a security rotation, a line item labeled simply protection, personnel, no further explanation offered or expected. I had already gathered, without anyone spelling it out for me, that the benefit on my own calendar and the summit on theirs were the same night in the same ballroom, one name for the guests who thought they understood what they were attending, another for the handful of people in this room who actually did.

"The florist wants access to the ballroom at six instead of seven," Nik said, reading from a printed sheet. "Says the arrangements won't hold their shape if they're rushed."

"Every florist says that," I said, before I'd fully decided to speak. "It's not usually true. It's a negotiating position dressed up as a horticultural fact."

Nik looked at me for the first time like I might be worth listening to instead of simply tolerating. "You'd say no."

"I'd say five thirty, which sounds like a compromise and is actually exactly what I wanted, because everyone feels like they won something and nobody checks the math afterward." I shrugged. "Also she'll take it. Florists always take the compromise that sounds generous. It's the ones who make you feel like you're stealing from them that you actually have to worry about."

Nik was quiet for a second too long, the kind of quiet that meant he was recalculating something.

"Five thirty," he said finally, writing it down. "That's better than what I had."

"I know."

"You don't have to sound so pleased about it."