"Make better conversation then."
Sonya steps forward slightly—not away from my touch, but beside me. United front. She addresses Dmitri directly, her voice calm and clear: "We're clear on expectations now. Shall we continue the briefing?"
The moment defuses. Message sent. Dmitri nods slowly, reassessing, and returns to his seat.
But I'm not done.
I wait until everyone's reseated at 3:45 PM, then I stand. Address the room clearly, making sure there's no ambiguity.
"Before we continue," I say, "I need something understood. Sonya Morozova is not 'my woman.' She's my partner. In all things. My equal. Anyone who disrespects her disrespects me. Anyone who threatens her becomes my enemy."
Pause. Let that settle.
"She's under Philadelphia protection, backed by the Chicago alliance, and supported by federal partnership. She's family to Alexei, and she stands with me as my equal partner. Those who stand with us Sunday stand with both families. Those who don't—" I meet Dmitri's eyes. "—can leave now."
No one leaves.
Sergei adds from his position near the door: "The Morozov-Petrov Foundation will be announced after the operation. Joint venture honoring Elena Petrov's vision, completed by Sonya Morozova. This is legacy work, supported by both families."
The families understand now. This isn't just protection. This isn't just claiming a woman because she's convenient or attractive. This is partnership, alliance, future building.
Even Dmitri reassesses, nodding slowly with grudging respect.
The briefing continues. I keep Sonya close—hand on her shoulder when she's presenting analysis, on her waist when we're reviewing maps together, on her lower back when we're moving around the room. Claiming and supportive simultaneously. Making it clear to everyone that we're a unit.
The meeting concludes at 4:30 PM. Families disperse, heading back to their territories with assignments and coordination protocols.
Mariana approaches us as the room empties, but most of her team has already left to begin preliminary staging. Just a few of Sergei's men remain, packing up equipment.
"Good dynamic today," Mariana says. "United front. The families respect that." She glances at Sonya. "Mikhail told me about Anton's seven victims pattern. You're breaking that pattern just by standing here trained and ready."
"I plan to break more than the pattern," Sonya says quietly.
"I believe in you."
Sergei begins securing some of the tactical displays, and Sonya moves to help him at the far end of the room. Mariana lingers near me, studying the Lincoln Center maps still spread across the table. She pulls up federal intelligence on her tablet, comparing it to our positioning plans.
"Your positioning plan," she says quietly. "Juilliard's underground spaces—you've mapped access points I didn't know existed."
"My people have been studying that building for two weeks."
"Two weeks and you found things our preliminary review missed." She pulls up her tactical map on the tablet, comparing his annotations to federal intelligence. "Service tunnels here, maintenance corridors here, emergency exits we had marked as 'inactive' or 'collapsed.' How'd you get this intel?"
"Money buys access. Fear buys silence. Respect buys truth." I lean over to point at the map. "This corridor connects to the subway maintenance tunnels. Anton could escape underground if we don't seal it."
"We didn't even know that connection existed." She zooms in on the area. "Our building records show it collapsed decades ago."
"It was. He cleared it three weeks ago." I pull up thermal imaging from Sergei's surveillance on my phone. "Heat signatures show recent activity."
Mariana studies the data, then looks at me with new respect. "In two weeks, you've done more intelligence work on this location than we could have done in two months. You have resources we don't."
"I've had fifteen years to think about catching one man. You have hundreds of cases."
"Fair point." She makes notes on her tablet. "I'll position teams at these access points. But I need your people to not shoot my people when they deploy."
"Give me communication frequencies and recognition codes. We'll coordinate."
"Just like that? No demands for operational control? No jurisdiction fights?"
