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“Luka gave him the pink slip last night,” Buck explains.
My heart skips a beat.He won’t bother you again, I’ll make sure of it.
Did Mikhail have something to do with this? Worry pricks at the back of my neck. Oh, God. Did he fire him because of the comments he made yesterday? The comments were disgusting and misogynistic, but surely, they warranted a warning instead of being fired outright.
I sit at my desk, uncomfortable. Do the Tech Bros think he was fired because of me? Do they resent me? What if this results in them treating me even worse?
“It’s just as well,” Lincoln mutters from his end of the table. “He was distracting the team.”
David’s the one who whispers to me. “Apparently Luka’s been evaluating our work from the very beginning. He’s got some rubric he’s marking us against. If you fall below a certain work satisfaction percentile, you get canned.”
I swallow, my throat terribly dry. Silently, I call bullshit. I’m really starting to think Mikhail had something to do with Charlie’s firing, and this work performance thing is all some massive cover to spare me. I’m not sure if I should feel grateful or indignant that Mikhail felt the need to rescue me. We both agreed I had everything under control.
I tinker away on my project for a few more seconds before vacating my chair. I need to know, and there’s only one man who has the answers.
Approaching Mikhail’s office, I realize the door has been shut. Unusual. When I peek in through the glass walls, I see all the Antonov brothers gathered in his office. Dimitri, Pyotr, and Luka have their backs to me, so I can’t see their faces, but their body language…
Something isn’t right.
There’s angry gesturing, tense shoulders, aggressive movements. They’re shouting, I think, though their voices are muffled by the glass. The only person I can see is Mikhail. He’s seated in his chair, elbow resting on his desk with one hand partially covering his lips. His brows are knitted together into a steep frown, his jaw a sharp line. Everything about him is tense, from the muscles in his neck and shoulders to the dark glare of his eyes.
I walk right past his door and continue down the hall until I’ve rounded the corner, out of sight. My ears burn, curious to know what’s going on. I can only get bits and pieces, and the brothers’ voices are so low that it’s difficult for me to distinguish who’s actually speaking.
“Something more going on…”
“...told us sooner, Misha!”
“We’re not Bratva. Tell the fucker we’re never joining him. Not after what he did to our father.”
The sound of the door swinging open rapidly makes me jolt. Dimitri is the first to storm out, narrowly missing crashing into me as he turns the corner. His usual carefree, charming air is gone, replaced with fury. He doesn’t even apologize for our near run-in, instead continuing down the hall and out of sight.
“I’ll talk to him,” I hear Pyotr say just out of earshot.
“It’s business as usual until I figure out what to do,” Mikhail says, his words tinged with something heavy and bitter.
I peek around the corner, heart thudding in my chest. What on Earth is going on? Is it business related? What does it sound so… personal?
Bratva.
The word echoes around inside my skull, my mind tugging at a distant memory. When I was a little girl, my mother used to read all manner of thriller novels. Her favorites had to do with international super spies tasked with putting away members of some of the world’s most dangerous crime organizations. From the Chinese Triads, the Japanese Yakuza, the Italian Mafia, and…
Russian Bratva.
My mother never let me read her books. Too violent, she’d say. But that didn’t stop me from taking a quick peek one afternoon while she was out getting groceries. She was right—reallyviolent. The stories were fictional, but I’m sure the author must have pulled inspiration from somewhere truthful.
It feels strange to hear about it in real life, and from the Antonov brothers, no less.
I chew on the inside of my cheek, unsure what to do or think. Perhaps I misheard. The glass walls are pretty thick, after all. I’m sure there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation—
“How much did you hear?”
I yelp, taking a frantic step back when Mikhail appears out of the corner of my eye. “You—I didn’t—”
“Eavesdropping is rude, Ms. Foster.”
I grit my teeth, feeling fiery. I don’t like being caught off-guard. “So is leaving without saying goodbye.”
Mikhail’s jaw ticks. I can’t tell if he’s annoyed or amused. His handsome face is stupidly difficult to read. “With me,” he says before turning to leave.
