Page 19 of Bratva Brother’s Bride

I find what I’m looking for in the bottom drawer. It’s a small leather portfolio, the kind that holds photographs. I open it and flip through until I find the one I need, then slide it across the desk to Vera.

She picks it up and studies it. The photograph is old, the colors faded. It shows two men standing outside a restaurant, both smiling at the camera. One is of a younger me, maybe twenty-three or twenty-four. The other is older, with gray hair and kind eyes.

“Who is this?” Vera asks.

“Mikhail Sokolov. My mentor.” The words taste bitter. “He taught me everything about the business.”

Understatement of the century. Mikhail was like a brother to me. He was perhaps the only person other than Vera I’ve ever truly cared about.

Vera’s eyes move between the photograph and my face. “What happened to him?”

“Dmitri killed him.”

Her breath catches. “Why?”

The office is quiet except for the hum of the air conditioning. Vera is quiet. She’s still hugging herself, and I notice the goosebumps on her arms. The office is cold. I’m sure Dmitri kept it this way on purpose to keep him sharp, but she’s shivering.

I stand and shrug off my suit jacket, then walk around the desk and drape it over her shoulders. The fabric swallows her smaller frame, and she pulls it tighter around herself.

“Thank you,” she says quietly.

“You run cold?”

She looks up at me, confused. “What?”

“You always seem to run cold. You should wear a thicker sweater.”

I don’t elaborate. I move back around the desk and sit down, pulling another file from the drawer. I flip it open and start scanning the documents inside. Shipping manifests again, from two years ago.

“Roman.”

I don’t look up. The manifest shows a container shipment to Detroit. The weight is off by nearly two tons.

“What do you want me to do?” she asks. Her voice has changed, gone softer. “Just sit here while you work?”

“If you want. Or you can help me search.”

She shuffles closer. I can hear the whisper of her jeans. When I glance up, she’s standing beside my chair and looking down at the papers spread across the mahogany surface.

“I wouldn’t know what to look for,” she says.

“Anything that seems unusual. Dates that repeat or names that appear multiple times.”

She leans over my shoulder to get a better look at the manifest, and I catch her scent. Something floral and clean, soap or shampoo. Her hair is still damp and it brushes against my cheek when she shifts.

My hand finds her knee. Her jeans are soft under my palm and I can feel the warmth of her skin through the denim.

She goes very still.

“What are you doing?” she asks.

“Touching you.”

“I can see that.”

“Does it bother you?”

She doesn’t answer right away. I let my thumb move in a small circle against the inside of her knee, testing. Her breath catches and I feel her lean into the touch, just slightly.