Page 33 of Bratva and Betrayal: Kirill

Drago strokes his chin, his brilliant mind running through this entire city. “There’s Lake Shore Drive.”

“No. She didn’t say it like that. Not Lake Shore. Two words. She said Lakeshore.” This is clawing at me from the inside out, my patience already fraying. “Call the intel team right now. I want everything you can find on the name Jessica Parker and Lakeshore here in Chicago. See what comes up.”

My enforcer reaches for his phone. “Yes, Pakhan.”

He’s been calling me that since the vote a few months ago, the inevitability in his tone getting stronger every day. My father still breathes, but he’s been confined to his bedroom suite in the north wing since his last stroke. Doctors give him a few weeks, a month, maybe.

I am running this Bratva. Nearly all of the brotherhood has accepted this. Only one leader didn’t vote to give me the power. My father’s former enforcer often bristles at my overstepping. I can’t think about how to deal with that right now.

Drago murmurs into his phone, the tone shifting into that clipped, authoritative cadence he uses with our men. They’ll figure it out. They found the auction for the painting.

I turn back to Ksenia. “How was she with you?”

“Confused,” my sister says softly. “Disoriented, but not in a calculated way. Not like someone playing a part.”

My chest tightens at that.

“I don’t think she’s lying, Kirill,” Ksenia continues, stepping closer, her voice more certain. “I know what a liar looks like. We all do. Sandrine…” She shakes her head. “Her eyes were empty. Not cold. Not evasive. Just…empty.”

Vacant. I saw it, too. That wasn’t her. The woman I knew.

“But she left me,” I snap, the anger rising fast and sharp. “She disappeared five years ago. No message, no nothing. You want me to believe she just forgot all of that?”

“What if she didn’t disappear on purpose?” my sister counters, her voice tightening. “What if Thomas did something to her the night she went to see him?”

“He denied knowing where she was to his dying breath,” I mutter.

“He changed her name. We have proof of that,” Ksenia keeps going. “You saw the documents.”

I did. I just don’t know why. My jaw flexes as I turn away, dragging a hand through my hair.

Drago snaps his fingers. “I got something.”

The faint whir of the printer behind him breaks the silence. Pages begin to spill out, one after another, like a relentless confession.

My brother-in-law grabs them from the tray and crosses the office, handing over the stack to me. “Here.”

I take it and squint to make out what I’m looking at. It’s a government reimbursement form.

Patient: Jessica Parker.

The name on the top of the billing form hits me like a punch to the throat.

Lakeshore Neurological Rehabilitation Center - Chicago.

“She was there,” Drago says, jaw tight. “Under the name Jessica Parker.”

I sit, and dig through these records.

“She was in that place for four years?” My eyes move faster now, scanning, devouring all the records. “It’s for fucking wards of the state. Indigens.”

“She was in a private rehab facility called Norridge for a few months before Lakeshore.” Drago drops another document on my desk. “She was sent to that state place from Norridge. The lawyer wasn’t providing for Sandrine after all.”

Was she brainwashed? Was she put somewhere for shock therapy? Was that the extent her father went to?

“I know Norridge. That’s the best place in the state if you have…” I stop and sit down.

My grip tightens on the paper.