Loving The Bratva Boss

Chapter 15

Isabella thinks she's subtle.

She isn't.

The girl moves like she believes shadows welcome her, like the walls don't have eyes, like I haven't run an empire for half my life by noticing every breath from every person under my roof. She truly thought she slipped back into her room unnoticed this morning—hair mussed, breath sharp, pulse racing the way it only does when someone listens at doors they shouldn't.

I let her believe it for exactly twenty minutes.

Long enough for her anxiety to simmer, not long enough for her to rationalize her way out of the guilt.

I walk down the hallway without hurrying. The air is quiet up here, the kind of quiet you only get in a house this large, where footsteps echo and one wrong turn can leave you wandering for hours.

I knock once.

Firm enough to make her jump.
Soft enough to give her hope.

Then I open the door before she can pretend she wasn't sitting there waiting for the consequences.

Her spine snaps straight.

There it is.
Guilt. Fear. Something else she doesn't want to admit yet.

"You left your room," I say, closing the door behind me with a soft click. "And you listened to conversations that were not meant for you."

She swallows hard, hands tightening in her lap. "I—I wasn't trying to—"

"You were," I interrupt. No point entertaining lies; they only grow when you feed them. "And you will not do it again."

Her jaw works like she wants to argue, but she's smart enough to rethink it at the last second. Good. I don't have the patience for another lecture.

"For your sake," I add quietly, "don't mistake silence for ignorance. I know everything that happens under my roof."

Her breath stalls.

Good. She needed the reminder.

"You will stay in the common spaces today," I continue. "Not your room. Not the hallways. Irina will keep an eye on you."

I step closer so she feels it—authority, weight, the unspoken truth that this world is sharper than she's ready for. "Do not test me today. I have no patience left."

She leaves stiffly, but she leaves.
The second she disappears around the corner, I let out a slow breath and take out my phone.

"Gio," I say when he answers, "front entrance. Five minutes."

He arrives in four.

Of course he does. If he ever arrives in five, I'll know something is wrong.

The car door closes behind me, and the city swallows us whole. Snow drifts sideways across the road in thin streaks, the early afternoon light dim behind heavy clouds. Moscow in winter is a chain around the throat—cold, crushing, unforgiving.

Today, it feels fitting.

We're driving to one of our secured satellite locations—a warehouse we use for meetings that shouldn't take place near the manor. I need distance, controlled space, and my most trusted inner circle.

Because today isn't about Isabella or Jade.

Today is about the leak.

The rat.

The invisible teeth gnawing at the foundation of everything I've built.

—

The warehouse sits behind two layers of fencing and a coded gate. Inside, it smells faintly of metal and oil, the air humming with electricity from the servers we keep offline from the main estate. It's essentially a bunker disguised as industrial property.