Bratva Daddy, page 23
The violation of it was breathtaking. But so was the care. Every note showed someone seeing my pain, my emptiness, my slow drowning in a life that was killing me. He'd watched my father destroy me piece by piece and had finally decided to stop it the only way he knew how—by taking me.
I pressed my palms against my eyes, trying to reconcile the creeping horror of being watched with the desperate gratitude of being seen. No one had ever paid this much attention to me. My father didn't know my coffee order after twenty-three years. Alexei had known it after a week. My father had never noticed my depression. Alexei had documented every sign, every cry for help I hadn't even known I was sending.
The front door opened—three locks turning in sequence. Alexei was back. I heard his footsteps, measured and careful, probably checking each room the way he always did. Safety first, then finding me. Always finding me, like he'd been doing for three years without my knowledge.
I spread the folder across the coffee table, evidence laid out like accusations. Or love letters. I couldn't decide which.
When his footsteps reached the office door, I looked up, meeting his eyes with the weight of three years of surveillance between us.
"We need to talk," I said, surprised at how steady my voice sounded when everything inside me was earthquake.
He stopped in the doorway, taking in the scene—me, eerily calm, surrounded by proof of his obsession.
No surprise crossed his face. Just resignation, like he'd always known this moment would come. Maybe he'd wanted it to.
"You've been watching me for three years," I said, voice level in a way that would have made him proud in different circumstances. The same tone I'd used with his lieutenants, controlled despite the chaos underneath. "Three years, Alexei. Before any of this with my father."
"Yes," he said simply. No deflection, no excuse. He moved into the room but kept distance between us, respecting the danger radiating from my stillness.
"Why?" The word cracked out of me despite my control. "Was I just some . . . project? Some broken girl you decided to collect? Add to your portfolio of damaged things?"
"No." He sat in the chair across from me, and I noticed blood on his knuckles from the discipline meeting. Fresh blood over old scars, the story of his life written in violence. "It’s our business to learn about allies and enemies. Your father was both. We needed to know about potential leverage against him. Any things we could use. That was you. I saw you at a fundraiser three years ago. The Alexandria Children's Hospital benefit. Your father was giving a speech about family values while you stood behind him like a ghost. "
I remembered that night. The dress that had been too tight, the shoes that had cut into my heels, the smile I'd held until my face ached while my father talked about the importance of nurturing children. He'd never nurtured anything in his life.
"You looked . . ." Alexei paused, searching for words in a way I'd rarely seen. "Like you were drowning in plain sight. This beautiful woman disappearing in real-time while everyone watched and no one saw. I couldn't stop watching you."
"So you stalked me." Not a question. The photos made that clear.
"Yes." Still no excuse, no attempt to soften it. "I told myself it was strategic intelligence at first. Learning about Viktor's family, potential pressure points. But that was a lie I needed to function. The truth was I'd become obsessed with the contradiction of you—this bright, fierce soul trapped in designer clothes and empty smiles."
He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, blood from his knuckles dotting his expensive pants.
"I watched you give money to homeless people when you thought no one was looking. Watched you volunteer at shelters your father didn't know about. Watched you build an entire life in the margins of his neglect. You'd read in parks for hours, losing yourself in books like they were oxygen. You'd visit your mother's grave and tell her about your week, about the charity work that actually mattered to you, about how tired you were of being invisible."
My throat tightened. Those graveyard conversations had been sacred, private. The one place I could be honest. Except I'd never been alone.
"I documented everything," he continued. "Every coffee order, every book purchase, every therapy session you paid cash for. I learned you like your eggs over easy but only when you're sad. That you bite your lip when you're nervous but only on the left side. That you touch your mother's ring when you need strength."
My hand went automatically to the chain at my neck, proving his point.
"And the kidnapping?" I asked, voice smaller than I wanted. "Was that always the plan?"
"Yes and no." He met my eyes directly, unflinching. "When we found out about your father’s betrayal, my brothers had other ideas. But to me, you were the perfect solution."
He stood, pacing now, energy that needed movement.
"But . . . the leverage story was for the bratva, for my brothers who needed to understand it in terms of business. The truth is simpler and worse—I couldn't watch you disappear anymore. Every week you got thinner, quieter, less present. You were fading like an old photograph, and I couldn't stand it."
"You could have just talked to me," I said, but even as the words left my mouth, I knew how naive they sounded. "Approached me normally."
"Could I?" He stopped pacing, faced me fully. "The pakhan of the Volkov bratva approaching Viktor Petrov's daughter for coffee? You would have run, or your father would have forbid it, or you'd have seen me as another transaction in his world of deals and leverage. We would never have been equal, never have been real."
The truth of that sat heavy between us. He was right. If he'd approached me normally, I would have assumed it was about my father, about business, about anything except me.
"So you decided kidnapping was better?" I couldn't keep the sarcasm out completely.
"I'm not a good man, Clara. I'm not even trying to be. I'm a killer who runs half of New York's underworld. But I saw you drowning and I decided to pull you out, even if you hated me for it."
"The notes," I said, gesturing to the photos. "You wrote that I looked hollow, that someone should save me. You wrote that you wanted to kill my father after he humiliated me."
"I meant every word." No shame, no regret. "I've wanted to kill him dozens of times over three years. Every time he ignored your achievements, dismissed your intelligence, used you as decoration while treating you like furniture. The only reason he's still breathing is because killing him then wouldn't have saved you. It would have just left you alone with his fortune and no idea who you really were."
I stood, needing to move, to pace, to do something with the energy coursing through me.
"You're sick," I said, but even as the words left my mouth, I wasn't sure I meant them. "You watched me for three years, planned to kidnap me, and I'm supposed to what—be flattered? Grateful? Fall into your arms because you're the first person to actually see me?"
"No," Alexei said, voice steady as granite. "You're supposed to be furious. Violated. You should hate me for the invasion, the theft of your privacy, the absolute arrogance of deciding your life for you."
"I do hate you," I said, but tears were streaming down my face, betraying the complexity of what I actually felt. "I hate that you saw me when no one else did. I hate that you knew I was drowning and waited three years to throw me a rope. I hate that the most fucked up thing anyone's ever done to me is also the only time I've ever felt truly seen."
The words hung between us, too honest for comfort. I wiped at my face angrily, hating the tears, hating him, hating myself for not hating him enough.
“Honesty,” he said, with respect in his voice.
"Do you understand how twisted this is?" I continued, voice climbing. "And the worst part? The absolute worst part is that I'm standing here feeling grateful. Grateful! Because at least someone gave enough of a damn to pay attention."
The room felt too small suddenly, like the walls were pressing in. My breath came short and sharp, panic mixing with anger mixing with something that might have been love if I'd let myself examine it too closely.
"I can't process this," I said, pressing my palms against my eyes. "It's too much. The violation and the care, the obsession and the attention. You took away my agency but gave me structure. You kidnapped me but saved me. Everything about this is wrong, but it's the first thing in my life that's felt right."
I dropped my hands, met his eyes across the space between us.
"Matryoshka."
The safeword hung between us like a blade. I watched his face change—not surprise but something deeper. Resignation maybe, or acceptance. His shoulders straightened slightly, every muscle going still in that way that meant he was exerting absolute control over himself.
"You need space," he said. Not a question, just recognition of what the safeword meant. "I'll sleep in my office. Take as long as you need. Tomorrow, the next day, next year—I don’t care—take however you need."
He stood slowly, carefully, like sudden movements might shatter something irreparable between us. I could see him forcibly not reaching for me, keeping his hands at his sides when every line of his body screamed to close the distance between us.
"I don't know how to process this," I admitted, voice small.
"I know," he said simply. "It was wrong. Is wrong. The whole thing is built on a fundamental violation of your privacy and autonomy. I won't insult you by trying to justify it."
"But you won't apologize for it either."
"I'll apologize for the method," he said, taking a single step toward the door. "For the violation of privacy, for taking away your choice, for the power imbalance. But I won't apologize for the result. Not when you're finally alive instead of performing life. Not when you're angry instead of empty. Not when you're here, real and present, instead of fading away in your father's penthouse."
He moved to the doorway, paused without turning back.
"The operation on the 24th," he started.
"Still happening?" I asked.
"If you want it to. Nothing happens without your word now. You can walk away from all of this—from me, from the operation, from this life. I'll have Ivan create documents, set you up with money, a new identity if you want. You can disappear, properly this time, on your own terms."
The offer sat between us, genuine and terrible. Freedom, finally. The ability to walk away from both my father and Alexei, to start fresh somewhere where no one knew my name or my history. It should have been tempting. Instead, it felt like another kind of death.
" I don't want to run and be invisible somewhere else."
"Then what do you want?"
"Time," I said. "I need time to think. To process. To figure out how to live with this."
"You'll have it," he said from the doorway.
Then he was gone, footsteps fading toward his office, leaving me alone with three years of surveillance photos and no idea what to do with the twisted gratitude and violation warring in my chest.
Ihadn't slept. The folder lay open on the coffee table, and I'd spent the night studying three years of surveillance like they were tea leaves that could tell me my future. Or maybe my past. At 3 AM, I'd heard Alexei in his office, speaking Russian on the phone—probably about the upcoming operation, finalizing details for my father's destruction. But he'd kept his promise, hadn't come to check on me, hadn't pushed.
The photos told a different story in the dark hours before dawn. Without the initial shock of violation, I could see what lived beneath his obsession. Every margin note documented not just surveillance but genuine concern. "She didn't eat lunch again." "Third day in the same dress—laundry broken or depression?"
It was deeply wrong. Invasive. Creepy by any rational standard. The violation of it should have sent me running. The healthy response would be to take his offer—new identity, clean start, far away from both my father and this beautiful monster who'd appointed himself my savior. That's what the therapist I'd seen secretly would say. What any rational person would advise.
But I'd never been rational. And maybe that's why Alexei and I fit—two broken people whose damage aligned perfectly, whose darkness recognized each other across a crowded fundraiser three years ago.
At 7 AM, I stood outside his office door. He was at his desk, still in yesterday's clothes, looking exhausted in a way that made him seem more human. Vulnerable, even, though he'd kill me for thinking it.
"You didn't sleep," I observed from the doorway.
"Neither did you," he responded carefully, like I was a wild animal that might bolt. His eyes tracked over me, cataloguing signs of my emotional state the way he'd been doing for three years.
"I'm still angry," I said, entering the room but maintaining distance. "You had no right to watch me like that. To document my life without consent. To know me so completely before I knew you existed."
"I know." Simple acceptance, no justification.
"But I'm also . . ." I struggled for words that could capture the complexity. "No one's ever paid that much attention to me. My father doesn't know my coffee order after twenty-three years. You knew it after watching me for a week."
I moved closer, perching on the edge of his desk. Near but not touching, declaring space while acknowledging connection.
"It's fucked up, Alexei. This whole thing is so broken I don't even know where to start fixing it."
"Maybe we don't fix it," he suggested carefully. "Maybe we just accept that it's broken and build something anyway."
"On a foundation of stalking and kidnapping?"
"On a foundation of seeing and being seen. Everything else is just context."
I laughed, but it had edges. "Context. You watched me for three years and kidnapped me, but sure, context."
"You threw books at my wall and then called me Daddy while I fucked you against the bathroom counter after I killed six men," he countered. "We're past normal, Clara. We've been past normal since the moment you walked into my office wearing my shirt and demanded answers instead of cowering."
The truth of that settled between us. We weren't normal. Weren't healthy by any standard definition. But maybe that's what made us work—two people too damaged for normal love, finding something deeper in the darkness.
"My father. The operation. He needs to pay for what he's done. For Mom, for me, for everyone he's hurt. Prison, not death."
"Prison," Alexei confirmed. "Though Dmitry's disappointed."
"Dmitry's always disappointed when he doesn't get to kill someone."
"True." A ghost of a smile crossed his face. "So we move forward?"
"We move forward," I agreed, then added the harder truth. "With everything. The operation, us, this completely fucked up thing we're building."
"You're staying?" The hope in his voice nearly broke me.
"I already chose you," I said simply. "I chose you when I signed that contract, when I called you Daddy, when I let you see me in little space. Finding out about the surveillance doesn't change that choice. It just . . . adds context."
I slid off the desk, moved between his knees, let him pull me closer but kept my hands on his shoulders, maintaining some control.
"But no more secrets," I said firmly. "No more hidden folders or surveillance I don't know about. If you're obsessed with me, I get to know about it. All of it. Every thought, every plan, every moment you watch me when you think I'm not looking."
"Deal," he said immediately, hands settling on my waist with careful pressure.
"And I get to read everything," I continued. "Every note you've made, every photo you've taken. Three years of surveillance—I want to see it all."
"It might disturb you."
"I'm already disturbed," I countered. "Might as well know the full extent."
He studied my face, and I let him see everything—the anger that hadn't fully faded, the violation I still felt, but also the desperate gratitude for being seen, the relief of being known, the twisted recognition of finding someone whose darkness matched mine.
"I love you," he said suddenly, the words hanging between us like a confession at gunpoint.
"I know," I said, because I did. Three years of surveillance had been a love letter written in violation and care. "I love you too. God help me, but I do. You're mine. My stalker, my kidnapper, my Daddy, my savior. All the contradictions, all the darkness, all of it. Mine."
"Yours," he agreed, pulling me down for a kiss that tasted like exhaustion and promise.
"Breakfast?" he asked against my lips. "I know exactly how you like your eggs when you haven't slept."
I laughed, genuine this time. "Of course you do."
Chapter 15
Clara
The instant I woke, I knew something was wrong.
The hand over my mouth wasn't gentle. Alexei's palm pressed hard enough to trap the scream before it formed, his body above mine tense as piano wire in the pre-dawn darkness.
"FBI," he whispered against my ear, and those three letters turned my blood to ice water. "They're surrounding the house."
I went completely still beneath him, suddenly aware of sounds I'd missed in sleep—car doors closing with deliberate quiet, footsteps on gravel trying for stealth but not quite achieving it. Multiple sets of footsteps. Multiple sides of the townhouse.
My heart hammered against my ribs hard enough that Alexei had to feel it through his chest. We were so close to taking down my father. But he must have moved first, played a card we hadn't seen coming.
"How many?" I managed against his palm when he eased the pressure slightly.
"Too many." His voice carried that flat tone that meant he was calculating odds, trajectories, acceptable losses. All the calculations were coming up red. "Eight vehicles that I can see. More agents than we can fight."
The Queens safe house had been secure for years, unknown to anyone outside Alexei's innermost circle. But somehow my father had found us. Somehow he'd convinced the FBI we were worth this kind of response.
"You need to cooperate," Alexei said urgently, pulling me from bed with movements too controlled for the situation. My robe appeared around my shoulders—the silk one he'd bought me, soft as water against my skin. His hands framed my face, forcing eye contact in the darkness. "Listen to me, Clara. Don't fight them. Don't resist. I'll fix this."
