Page 149 of Bratva Bidder

“You asked to see me,” I say, keeping my voice level.

“Yes.” His tone is almost conversational, but the tremor at the edge betrays fatigue he’ll never admit.

I wait. He gestures to the chair beside the bed; I stay on my feet.

“Roman’s funeral is in three days,” he says, fingers worrying the blanket. “I want you there.”

I let the words hang between us, weighed down by everything we’ve never been able to say. “You don’t want me there.”

“Why not?” he counters, brow lifting, as though the idea is absurd.

I give a humorless laugh. “You still think I killed him.”

He shakes his head once, too quickly. “No. I don’t.”

He looks away as he says it—eyes drifting to the half-closed blinds where night presses against the glass. A flicker of something shadows his face, gone before I can name it. Regret? Fear? The truth struggling to surface?

“What aren’t you telling me?” I ask, taking a step closer. “You didn’t burn my warehouse, you say you believe I didn’t pull the trigger on Roman—so who did? And why call a truce now?”

Silence settles, deep and brittle. The monitor beside him beeps steadily, an impatient metronome. He’s hiding something.

The shift is subtle, but I know him. Every calculated breath, every feigned pause. There’s a flicker of something else in his face now—regret? Uncertainty? Guilt?

I step closer. “What is it?”

He doesn’t respond. Just exhales slowly and finally meets my gaze again, and the look he gives me is not one I recognize. It isn’t commanding. It isn’t mocking. It’s…tired.

“I want you there,” he says again, quieter this time. “That’s all.”

But it’s not all. I know it. He wants something else, something he’s not saying.

And for the first time in a long time, I don’t know what it is.

I wait for him to say more. I watch him like a man trying to read the sea in the stillness of a single wave. But nothing comes. Justthe steady rise and fall of his chest, the tick of the heart monitor, the man who taught me not to blink first now refusing to meet my eyes.

“That’s all?” I ask, my voice low.

“That’s all,” he says again, but even he doesn’t sound convinced.

I nod once, then turn and walk out.

The hallway feels too long, too narrow, like it’s closing in on me. I move through it on muscle memory, back toward the pediatric wing. My hands are clenched at my sides. My jaw aches from the way I’ve been grinding my teeth.

Nikolai’s room is quiet when I step in.

Nadya’s there—curled up in the chair beside his bed, watching our son sleep. She doesn’t look up right away, but I see her shoulders lift, her body sensing me before her eyes find me.

“Hey,” she says softly.

I lower myself beside her, not ready to speak yet. The soft beeping from the machines and the gentle hiss of the IV fill the room.

“He’s resting better,” she adds, reaching over to adjust Nikolai’s blanket. Her fingers linger there, brushing against his tiny arm.

“Good,” I manage.

She turns to me, studying me now. “You saw him?”

I nod. “He wants me to go to Roman’s funeral.”