Page 89 of Obsession of the Bratva

“Only one person can settle that,” Kliment suddenly added, his eyes trained on me. “Vera, is Nico a drama queen or not?”

“You love me, Vera. Don’t forget that,” Nico said, his eyes twinkling.

The room was silent as if everyone was waiting for me to say something.

“He definitely still is a drama queen.”

Everyone cheered, and I laughed so hard my stomach hurt. Beside me, Nico looked increasingly offended while everyone else looked delighted.

“When the two of you have kids, they’ll probably inherit Vera’s stubbornness and Nico’s temper,” Jarek said, looking at us. “We should start praying now.”

“Immediately.”

Nico rubbed a hand over his face. “I hate all of you.”

“No, you don’t.”

“No.” He sighed. “I really don’t.”

Silence settled briefly. Warm, comfortable silence. Family silence. The kind that didn’t need filling. And for the first time in a very long time, I allowed myself to imagine the future. Not tomorrow. Not next week. Not surviving the next crisis. But the actual future.

Birthdays. Holidays.

Arguments over nothing. Children running through hallways. Nico teaching them terrible habits. Me trying to undo the damage.

The possibility of a life. A real one. Not perfect but ours. My eyes drifted toward him again and he must have felt it because he looked over immediately.

“What’s that look for?”

I smiled. “Nothing.”

“Liar.”

“Maybe.”

His hand squeezed mine beneath the table, hidden from everyone else. A small gesture. A private one. And somehow it meant everything. For months I had believed I lost him. Then I believed he hated me. Then I believed we had destroyed each other beyond repair. Now he sat beside me.

Annoying. Overprotective. Impossible.

Mine.

And for the first time since this entire nightmare began, the future no longer felt like something to fear. It felt like something to look forward to. Just for a moment. Just for one fragile, precious moment. It felt like peace.

Just then, Kliment walked towards us and whispered something in Nico’s ear, but it was loud enough that the voice reached me. “We have Adrian and Manny’s location. We attack tomorrow.”

Chapter 21 - Nico

“Ready?” I looked up from the map spread across the conference table in my house. Kliment stood across from me and Jarek leaned against the wall. Fyodor occupied the chair beside mine. I hadn’t asked my brothers to accompany me in this showdown, but they had shown up anyway, claiming that this battle was as much theirs as it was mine.

Since Vera was one of us now.

Nobody was smiling or joking and that alone told me how serious this was. I folded the map and stood up. The meeting had been going on for the past two hours while we waited for the right time to attack. Our soldiers were on the lookout at the location we had been given by intelligence, where Adrian Petrov and Manny Stavros were meeting tonight.

We had to get both of them, and I was planning to do just that.

“I have never been more ready in my life,” Jarek nodded, finally smiling.

“After everything these two bastards have done, they are going down,” Fyodor chimed in, stepping forward.