Page 63 of Possessive Bratva’s Kidnapped Virgin

“Yes,” I said.

“So the bait that works is one that appears to confirm his read that the Golovin response to his escalation is defensive rather than offensive. A summit positioned as a neutral gathering rather than a Golovin event. Something that looks like we’re seeking allies rather than projecting strength,” he went on.

“It tells him he’s winning,” I said. “It confirms the story. He won’t be able to stay away.”

Dan was already writing.

Alexei looked at the chip on the desk. Then at me with the expression that I was still trying to figure out.

“You’ve been thinking about this for a while,” he said.

“Since the balcony,” I said. “Since the morning after the confession. I’ve been waiting to know enough about the shape of your counter-operation before offering a framework that might be useless without the context.”

“It’s not useless.”

“No,” I agreed. “I know.”

He looked at me for another moment. Then, without looking away, he called, “Dan. Give us ten minutes.”

Dan picked up his phone, the table, and left with an efficiency that proved he had been waiting for that instruction.

The room was quiet again.

I looked at Alexei across the desk and waited.

“You should have been part of this from the beginning,” he said.

The statement was clear and concise. It wasn’t an apology; I doubted if he ever offered those. It was a statement of fact. It was a correction to a prior position.

“You were protecting me,” I said.

“I was protecting you in a way that assumed protection and operational participation were mutually exclusive,” he disclosed. “They’re not. I’ve been building a defense around a person I was treating as a civilian. You are not a civilian in any way that matters to this situation.”

I looked at the chip.

“No,” I said. “I’m not.”

I looked at the poker chip. My mind went over the deliberate cruelty of what it represented—Adrian’s name used as a message to his sister, the dead repurposed as a threat against the living.

I closed my hand around it.

“Tell me the rest of the plan,” I said.

In that moment, I deciphered what I saw in Alexei’s expression. It was an acknowledgment.

He pulled the legal pad toward him and opened it to a fresh page.

“The summit is anchored to a specific pretext,” he said. “A private poker tournament. High-stakes, invitation-only, positioned as an independent, neutral gathering. The invitations go out through channels Siroc’s intelligence has access to. Not directly to Siroc, because a direct invitation triggers his suspicion, but visible enough in his network that he’ll hear about it within hours.”

“And he’ll interpret hearing about it as intelligence,” I said. “As proof that his people are better than yours.”

“We didn’t have that in our perspective before, but yes.” He wrote something on the pad. “The guest list needs to include three or four names he specifically values. People whose presence tells him the stakes are real and that the Golovin position is weaker than it appears. We give him reason to believe that key allies are attending without Golovin confirmation.”

“Giving him a room he thinks he can work.” I thought about the casino floor. About the way he’d stood at the east bar watching us with those calculating eyes. “He’ll want to arrive before the room is set. He’ll want to be there when people arrive so he can position himself as already present, already central.”

“Which tells us where he’ll be and when.”

“And what he’ll be focused on,” I added. “Siroc at a table he thinks he’s winning is Siroc not watching the edges of the room. He’s a man who gets tunnel vision when he’s performing. The spectacle consumes his attention. Whatever you’re planning to do—it needs to happen when he’s at the table. When he thinks he’s in the middle of winning.”