Page 46 of Possessive Bratva’s Kidnapped Virgin

‘Am I safe? What does this mean for me? How long will this last?’

“Just sit,” Anya urged, her light voice an attempt to casualize things. “Let him work. When he’s managing something, the most useful thing you can do is not add to what he’s managing.”

I sat.

Sofia sat beside me. Dmitri stayed at the window. Viktor paced with the controlled energy of a man who needed to be doing something and was restraining himself to movement.

*****

Alexei found me at eleven.

He came to the conference room door and looked in, saying nothing and giving Viktor a nod as they all filed out.

He came in and closed the door.

“Tell me what’s going on,” I uttered.

He sat across the table from me.

“Siroc filed a multi-pronged complaint with the gaming commission nine days ago. It was designed to trigger an accelerated review rather than a standard queue examination. The agents on-site today are from the commission’s compliance division—not federal law enforcement.”

“I heard federal.”

“Commission agents carry the same identification format. Staff misidentified the category.” He held my gaze. “It’s a pressure tactic. The complaints are constructed to require a response rather than to succeed. By the time the review concludes that our licenses are clean—and they will conclude that, because they are—they will have used the window of examination to generate speculation in business circles.” He paused. “It costs us in reputation what it can’t touch legally.”

“Smart,” I said.

“Yes.” Something moved through his expression. “You’ve been thinking about this.”

“I’ve had several minutes in a room with nothing to do but think about it.” I looked at my hands. Then back at him. “Is all this connected to me?”

The pause before his answer was short. And that was a response in itself.

“The timing of the complaint aligns with a period of heightened activity we’ve been tracking,” he said. “Whether the activity is causally connected to your presence or coincidentally adjacent—”

“Alexei.”

He looked at me.

“Did bringing me into your life accelerate this?”

There was a longer pause. His jaw moved slightly. “Siroc was going to move eventually. He’s been building toward it.” He held my gaze with the directness I’d asked for from the beginning and that he’d been giving me in increasing measure. “Your presence may have—altered the timeline.”

The words landed exactly as heavily as I’d been bracing for them to land.

I nodded. “Thank you for telling me honestly.”

“You asked me to.”

“I know.” I pressed my hands flat on the table. “What do you need me to do?”

“Stop worrying,” he answered quickly.

I raised a brow and chuckled.

“I’ll be at the penthouse earlier. We’ll have dinner together.”

I nodded again, unable to restrain my smile.