Page 28 of Brutal Bratva’s Owned Hostage

“I know I already asked and—”

“You’re wondering if it could be her,” I cut in.

“Any other name could be linked to all this, but it’s hers.”

“No.”

I said it without hesitation, the certainty in my voice surprising even me slightly, though it didn’t waver once it left my mouth.

“Dmitri—”

“No, Roman,” I interrupted again. “I told you. You’ve seen it. Val doesn’t have the technical skill for something this calculated, and more than that, she doesn’t have the mindset for it either. Everything about how she’s handled the last month has been fear and confusion, real fear, real confusion, not deception. If she were involved, I’d have seen it by now.”

He accepted that, though not fully relaxing. “So what’s the play?”

“Expand internal checks. Quietly. Every employee with penthouse access, every staff member across the clubs, every security contractor who’s touched our systems in the last six months. I want it reviewed properly, but no public escalation or even internal panic. Controlled verification, nothing that tips whoever’s doing this into knowing we’re actively hunting them.”

“That’s a lot of people to check quietly.”

“Then start with the ones closest to the access points that got hit. Financial routing touches fewer hands than most departments. Work outward from there.”

Roman nodded slowly, then asked, “What exactly are we looking for?”

“Someone close enough to touch the system,” I said. “Not just access to it. Proximity to the specific documents that got pulled, and enough trust built up over time that nobody thought to question their movements.”

He held my gaze a moment, something calculating behind his eyes. “That description fits about a dozen people, myself included.”

“I’m aware. Check yourself too, if it makes you feel better about the process.”

“Not particularly, boss, but I appreciate the offer.” A ghost of his usual dry humor slipped through despite the tension in the room, and I felt my shoulders loosen slightly at the familiarity of it. “I’ll get started this morning. Quietly, like you asked.”

“Good.”

He headed for the door, then paused, glancing back at me with something more serious settling over his expression. “For what it’s worth, I harbor no secret doubts about her.”

He left before I could answer, and I sat in the quiet of the security office, grateful for something I hadn’t expected to need from him.

Alone, I pulled the encrypted logs back up and stared at them, falling into another old habit of studying a problem until it revealed something new. The pattern bothered me more than I’d let on to Roman, not because of what had been taken—though that mattered a lot on its own—but because of how it had been taken.

Someone was aiming at structure.

And that meant someone understood us at a level that unsettled me more than I wanted to think about without having their identity pegged.

For a second, my mind drifted back to Val again. I forced the thought away deliberately this time, walking myself back through the same logic I’d given Roman. If she were involved, the pattern would look different. Sloppier. More emotional, shaped by panic or desperation rather than calm, methodical patience. This breach carried none of that. It carried calculation. Intention. The signature of someone who’d spent years, not weeks, learning how this family actually functioned.

Val had been inside my world for barely three weeks. Whoever was doing this had clearly been watching us far longer than that.

I thought of Varley. I thought of the smoothness with which he’d suggested locking Val away and interrogating her the moment her name came up in that boardroom meeting. But I dismissed the thought. I knew well that a man that quick to point suspicion elsewhere mostly did it because he genuinely believed the accusation. It didn’t make him a suspect.

Alexei called me, entering the office the second I spoke.

“How is the latest Golovin husband doing?” he inquired, pulling back the chair opposite my desk and sitting with no hint of humor on his face.

“I didn’t think I’d see you today. Or anytime, for that matter. I heard Isla got back yesterday,” I teased back.

“Yeah, she’s back.” Even a blind man could see the tenderness that flashed across his face for a second at the mention of his wife. “You look like you haven’t slept.”

“I haven’t, much.”