Bratva Baby (Ruthless Mafia Kings #2)

1. Sofiya

SOFIYA

Something bad is going to happen tonight.

I’m standing near the ballroom arch in a silk dress my aunt chose for me and diamonds my mother would’ve called excessive if she were still alive to say it.

The chandelier above us throws gold across glass and marble. A string quartet plays near the terrace doors.

Waiters move through the crowd with champagne and little white spoons of caviar and food nobody here actually needs.

Men who own ports laugh with men who regulate ports.

Wives in couture murmur over charity galas and schools and foundation boards while their husbands trade access and debt with a shake of the hand.

This is how the Leonidovs like to live.

Clean on the surface. Filthy underneath.

My family built itself in the nineties when everything was breaking open and everyone greedy enough could grab a piece.

The older men stole fuel, skimmed freight, bribed customs, moved goods through bonded warehouses, and buried cash under layers of paper until theft started looking like commerce.

Then they evolved. Or at least that’s the word they use when they want to sound civilized.

Now it’s logistics, real estate, import firms, cold storage, port leasing, government friends, and charity photos in the business pages. We still move what needs moving.

We just invoice it better.

I know exactly how much of it is real because my father made sure I did.

He kept the books, the fronts, the route structures, the hidden reconciliations. He taught me that every empire worth fearing rests on paper first. Men with guns only matter after someone makes the numbers line up.

When I was twelve, he put an invoice in front of me and asked what was wrong with it.

I told him the vendor number was off by one digit. The smile he gave me was rare by his standards. Then he asked me what that meant. Thus began my training.

By sixteen, I could read a customs declaration and tell whether the lie sat in the cargo, the weight, the declared destination, or the timing.

By twenty-four, I’m working in the import business with a title neat enough to print on a card and a skillset nobody sane would advertise.

So when the mood in the ballroom shifts, I know it for what it is.

My uncle Grigor stands near the center of the room with a deputy minister on one side and a shipping investor from Hamburg on the other.

He looks mildly amused by everyone around him until one of his senior men reaches him, leans in, and says something into his ear.

Grigor’s face doesn’t fall.

Men like him don’t give rooms that satisfaction.

But his hand closes once around the stem of his glass and his lips press into a thin line, and that’s enough.

I let my attention drift without moving my head much. Maks is near the bar in a black jacket and white shirt open at the throat. He’s talking to one of the freight boys from Tallinn, smiling as if he doesn’t have a single bad thought in his head.

If you photographed him from the right angle, he’d look like the future of the family. Clean lines. Good cheekbones. A worthy son of the empire.

I know better.

Maks is my cousin. He learned early that the easiest way to hurt people is to sound reasonable while doing it.

He never wastes fury if charm can get him the same result.

When we were younger, he used to let other boys pick fights for him, then step in at the end and speak like the one decent man in the room. Adults loved that since they found him full of promise.

By the time my father died, Maks had already started moving closer to power.

Officially, my father suffered a heart attack eighteen months ago. He’d given too many hours to the work and taken on far too much stress.

His was a life spent managing men who thought paperwork existed to clean up after appetite, and in the end, it wore him down.

That’s the accepted version. I haven’t believed it for a second, though I don’t have proof.

In the weeks before his death, he changed. He worked later, stopped trusting the office servers for certain files. He started showing me backup habits he’d once kept to himself. He made me memorize names and old storage systems and one awful little rule that still lives in my head.

If the numbers ever start getting ahead of the house, don’t wait for permission. Run.

I didn’t understand then why he was looking at me like a man trying to leave behind tools instead of comfort. I understand it now.

A server passes with champagne. I take one glass so I have something to do with my hands and bring it to my mouth without drinking.

Around me, conversation rolls on. Someone laughs over my right shoulder. My aunt lifts her chin at a woman across the room in a way that passes for greeting among rich enemies.

The doors open again and Anton Reznikov strides in.

He’s taller than most men in the room, broad through the shoulders, narrow through the hips, and built like he’s used to taking up space without asking permission.

His suit is dark enough to drink in the light, cut close over a powerful chest and a hard waist, and the clean lines of it only make him look more lethal.

His face is the kind that could ruin a woman’s judgment in under a minute.

Strong jaw.

Crooked nose that must’ve been broken years ago and somehow only made him better looking.

Dark hair cut short.

Heavy brows.

A mouth that looks mean until it moves.

After lazily scanning the room, he looks straight at me.

My cheeks go hot so fast it feels stupid, a rush of heat climbing from my chest to my face like my body has decided to humiliate me in public. I tighten my fingers around my glass and hold his gaze anyway.

His eyes are dark brown, nearly black from across the room, but the chandelier catches in them when he turns his head and for a second they burn warm, rich, dangerous.

For a moment, I feel alive in a way that lands low in my body and stays there.

I know exactly who he is, and my body still answers first.

He looks away first, and I curse under my breath and take a moment to ground myself.

The Reznikov Brotherhood grew from a different soil than we did. My family likes to be ornamental.

Their side likes reputation. Leonidov money learned to hide inside trade law, shell firms, and political favors. Reznikov power came up through prison alliances, debt collection, protected clubs, and the kind of loyalty men swear after surviving ugly things together.

We both ended up rich.

We just tell different stories about how.

Years ago, before I was old enough to understand the business and young enough to hear everything anyway, a protected shipment disappeared somewhere in the port structure. Then a Reznikov captain died.

Then an intermediary, a man both sides were supposed to leave untouched, turned up dead before he could settle terms.

After that came reprisals, dock violence, burned storage, men dragged out of cars, and enough blood to make both houses realize open war was bad for revenue. The truce that followed was all about management.

You can build empires on grievance if you invoice them well enough.

Anton’s presence here means whatever just went wrong tonight isn’t small.

Grigor goes to greet him, and everyone pretends not to notice. That’s the art here. Everyone sees everything and reacts to nothing.

The quartet keeps playing. A woman in emerald satin touches her husband’s sleeve and smiles at someone else entirely. Two men from customs keep discussing a ski trip.

I can’t tear my eyes away from them.

Anton says something to my uncle. Grigor answers. Neither man lifts his voice. Maks glances over once, then looks away, and that alone makes my skin go cold.

A soft laugh sounds beside me. “You’re staring,” says Mikhail Arsenyev, who has been trying for six months to interest me in marriage, sex, or some arrangement that would allow him to call it both.

I turn to find him in navy formalwear and expensive cologne, smiling like this is a joke we’re sharing. “Then thank God I was raised better than to do it obviously.”

He grins. “You wound me.”

“I’m sure you’ll survive.”

He shifts closer, lowering his voice. “Your uncle looks unhappy.”

“He’s hosting. That’s his natural state.”

Mikhail snorts. He’s harmless by our standards, which still leaves plenty of room for ordinary male arrogance.

His father has freezer contracts and a parking garage empire that launders more than cars. He’s handsome in a polished way. He also thinks persistence is seductive.

“I was going to ask if you’re free next Thursday,” he says, eyes flicking toward the center of the room. “Now I’m wondering whether your family plans to shoot anyone before dessert.”

“Only if the dessert disappoints,” I say.

That earns a laugh, though I’m not fully listening.

My eyes roam and land on Anton again.

He’s making a slow, unapologetic sweep of me, head to toe, like he owns every inch he studies.

When he drags those eyes back up and stops at my mouth, butterflies erupt in my stomach.

I scowl and look away immediately. Who the hell does he think he is, standing there shamelessly devouring me where everyone can see?

Mikhail is still talking. “My mother asked after you, actually.”

“Did she ask after me,” I say, dragging my attention back where it belongs, “or did she ask whether I’m available?”

He winces, amused and caught. “Does it matter?”

“It does when one question is human and the other is inventory.”

He opens his mouth, then shuts it again. To his credit, he laughs instead of sulking. “You never make anything easy.”

“That’s because easy in this family usually means dangerous.”

A movement near the side hall pulls my eye. Two security men change position. Not ballroom staff. House men. One murmurs into an earpiece. On the far side of the room, Maks leaves the bar and disappears through the same door Grigor’s senior man used earlier.

Something in freight has clearly broken open, and nobody’s going to tell me in this room.

“Forgive me,” I tell Mikhail, already stepping back. “If I don’t rescue my aunt from that woman in silver, I’ll be hearing about it until Christmas.”