Page 26 of Bratva Baby

My chest tightens.

I don’t know the full shape of what Maks is trying to build, but I know enough of Leonidov and Reznikov history to understand this cannot become personal without turning catastrophic.

Whatever passed between the families at dinner, it didn’t go well, and if I keep stepping toward Anton like this, I won’t just be risking myself. I’ll be handing my family another reason to turn vicious, and I’m already standing too close to that fire.

So I slide out of bed carefully, dress in the dark, and slip out.

7

ANTON

I wake to cold sheets and an empty hand.

For one disoriented second, I stay still, eyes open to the dark line of the ceiling and the weak morning light under the curtains.

The pillow still holds the shallow shape of where Sofiya slept. The blanket is folded back. I push up fast, my eyes moving over the chair, the sofa, the console by the wall. The room gives me nothing back.

Last night, her clothes were everywhere. I could tell you exactly where her bra landed, where her panties caught on the edge of the rug, where her top hit the floor near the window. None of that means a thing now.

Something hard drags through my chest.

I look again anyway. Her trousers and shoes are gone. The space by the door is empty now. Everything looks back at me clean and still, like I’m the idiot for expecting otherwise.

I swing my legs off the bed, grab the first pair of trousers in reach, and pull them on without turning on the light. I grab my phone from the bedside table and think of making a call. It’d be easy to find where she ran.

Something makes me stop.

Women don’t usually leave my rooms before I wake. Not after a night like that. I don’t let the next thought finish itself. I drop the phone back onto the table harder than I need to and look toward the door instead.

I open the door and step into the private corridor barefoot and half-dressed, already hating that I need the cameras to tell me what I should know for myself.

At the far end, one of the night attendants straightens the second he sees me. He knows who I am. Hotels built around private suites, coded lifts, concierge service, and surveillance sell a certain kind of importance. Men pay well to feel insulated. They pay even better to feel recognized without being watched too openly.

So when one of those men walks into the corridor half-dressed in the morning, rough with old stubble and bad sleep, it means trouble.

“Who left this floor in the last hour?” I ask.

His eyes dip once, take in my state, then jump back up. “A woman, sir.”

No shit.

“Alone?”

“Yes.”

“Which exit?”

He swallows. “Private lift.”

I nod. “How long ago?”

“Approximately twenty-five minutes.”

That’s enough time to disappear into a city like Prague if she already knew where she was going.

“Footage. Now.”

He moves quickly, speaking fast into the earpiece at his collar.