Page 50 of Possessive Bratva’s Kidnapped Virgin

“Sir,” he practically exclaimed. “Good morning, sir.”

“Good morning. If Chef Laurent needs anything today, have him call Dan directly. I want the kitchen operating normally.”

“Yes, Mr. Golovin,” he answered, nodding to emphasize his agreement.

By the time I returned to the security room, the atmosphere of the whole casino had changed tangibly. Not in any way that the federal agents moving through the service corridors would have been able to take credit for. It was simply the effect of small decisions by a hundred people who had concluded that the person responsible was handling what was going on and that their job was, therefore, to do their own jobs.

This was what I had built, not just the legal structures and financial protocols.

Isla appeared on the security feed, shifting my thoughts so quickly I couldn’t fight it—if I wanted to fight it.

I saw her on screen eleven. She was stepping out of our bedroom in a simple silk off-the-shoulder silk dress that stopped right on her knees, her hair falling to her shoulders on both sides. But the sight of her beauty didn’t make me miss how she turned sharply, as if she suddenly suspected someone was behind her.

In isolation, it might have been nothing.

But, several hours later, I watched her flinch two different times. Once, when Mira rejoined her in the same kitchen. The second time, she apparently heard a sound that startled her as she walked along the hallway.

Then I pulled up the additional security coverage Dan had assigned to her without explanation three days ago—four cameras covering the spaces she regularly occupied, two additional guards whose rotation included our floor—and I reviewed the log.

Nothing anomalous. No communications I could access without methods I wasn’t prepared to use against her. Nothing I could point to.

Except for her face, on screen, which showed some type of apprehension, like she was aware of being observed.

“Dan.”

He was across the room, on a call I’d indicated he should take. He looked up. I waited for the call to finish. “The pre-Phoenix records.”

“Still processing, boss.” He crossed to the desk. “My contact says there’s a gap that doesn’t look accidental. Eighteen months, approximately, where Isla Monroe-Vega appears in no records we can find despite documented continuous employment by two different Phoenix firms.”

“That’s not a gap,” I said. “That’s a redaction.”

Dan looked at me.

“Someone removed those records,” I said. I looked at the screen where she was now in the general sitting room, alone, looking at her laptop screen like she was trying hard to focus on something.

“I want a different approach. Stop looking for what’s there. Start mapping what should be there and isn’t. If you know the shape of a normal life in that period—employment records, lease agreements, utility accounts, tax filings—and some of them are missing, the missing ones tell you what someone decided to remove.”

Dan looked at me again for a moment before saying, “That’ll take time.”

“Take the time.”

He nodded and moved away.

I looked at the screen again.

The absence of her trail felt increasingly like a specific rather than a general absence.

*****

She tried to act normal when I came to our floor much later that evening. And it infuriated me in a way I couldn’t fully describe. Not because I doubted her loyalty, but because I thought she was carrying a burden alone and I didn’t even know what it was.

“How are you doing? How was your day?”

“Good,” she replied, turning to face me from the window by the bed. “I heard the raid wasn’t that bad. That’s good, right?”

I knew the difference by now. Her genuine responses were warmer and less composed than what she was giving me.

“Dinner?” she said. “Mira left something in the kitchen.”