Page 35 of Bratva Daddy (Underworld Daddies #1)

Ivan's fingers hovered over his keyboard, ready. I settled beside Clara, close enough to provide support but far enough to let her work.

"January fifteenth," she began, eyes focused on something only she could see—the perfect recall of someone who'd learned to remember because forgetting meant missing crucial information.

"Dinner at Le Bernardin, private room. Commissioner Bradley arrived seven minutes late, navy suit, nervous sweat.

My father had me sit between them, said it would 'soften the conversation. '"

Her mouth twisted at the memory, but she continued with prosecutorial precision.

"Left an envelope under Bradley's napkin—white, standard business size, roughly two inches thick.

When Bradley protested that it was 'more than agreed,' my father said, 'Consider it an investment in Washington Heights staying quiet during the construction project.

' Bradley took the envelope at 9:47 PM."

Ivan typed rapidly, capturing every detail. "Amount?"

"Fifty thousand," Clara said with certainty. "Father always uses hundreds, nonsequential. Five hundred bills exactly. He mentioned once that it looks less suspicious than mixed denominations."

The casual observation—her father teaching her criminal methodology without realizing it—made my chest tight. She'd been studying him as much as he'd been ignoring her.

"March third," she continued, shifting forward slightly. "The Yale Club, members-only dining room. Tony Ricci, but he went by 'Mr. Rice' for the reservation. They discussed the docks—specifically, the protests planned against the Kozlov development."

"The Kozlovs were moving on the waterfront that early?" Ivan asked, looking up sharply.

"They've been planning this for months," Clara confirmed. "My father promised to rezone the waterfront if Ricci's people handled the 'disruption.' His word. He wanted the protesters discouraged but not martyred—bad optics for his office."

She paused, fingers drumming once on the table before stilling.

"Ricci asked about compensation. Father said the rezoning itself was payment enough—it would triple property values within five years. But Ricci wanted cash too. They settled on thirty thousand plus the rezoning."

"Did money change hands?" I asked.

"Two days later. Messenger service to Ricci's legitimate business—a restaurant supply company in Queens. I know because I had to sign for the 'catering contract' when Father's secretary was at lunch."

Three hours passed like minutes, Clara's voice never wavering as she laid out crime after crime.

Her memory was extraordinary—not just dates and names but details that would make prosecution airtight.

The color of ties, the specific restaurants, the exact words used to dance around explicit bribery while making intent clear.

She'd been a recording device in a pretty dress, and her father had been too arrogant to notice.

"The secretary," Clara said suddenly, breaking from her chronological recitation. "Melissa Crawford. That's our smoking gun for embezzlement."

Ivan looked up, interested. "Explain."

"Father always buys his mistresses jewelry from Cartier on Fifth Avenue.

Always. He has an account there, likes the discretion.

But here's the thing—" She leaned forward, eyes bright with the thrill of the hunt.

"He expensed his last purchase to the city as 'diplomatic gifts for visiting dignitaries. '"

"You're certain?" Ivan asked, fingers already flying across keys.

"I processed the expense report," Clara said with grim satisfaction. "Sixty thousand dollars in 'diplomatic gifts' purchased three days after Melissa started working for him. The same week the Brazilian trade delegation canceled their visit due to COVID concerns."

“Why the fuck did this idiot not pay the three million?” Ivan said, a grim smile on his face. “This davochka is gonna cost him everything.”

"There's more," Clara said, and something in her voice made both of us focus completely. "He has a safe in his home office. Behind the portrait of my mother—sick irony, using her image to hide his crimes."

She stood, pacing now, energy crackling through her movements.

"The combination is her death date—month, day, year. Zero-seven, one-five, two-zero-zero-eight. July fifteenth, 2008. The day she died, and he couldn't even pretend to mourn before he was already planning how to use her life insurance."

The bitterness in her voice could have etched glass.

"Inside that safe are the real books. Everything.

Not just the bribes but the actual ledgers—who paid what, when, for which favor.

He keeps them as insurance, leverage against everyone who's ever paid him.

" She turned to face us fully. "He showed me once, drunk on his own power, explaining how he owned half of Manhattan through those records. "

"He showed you?" I couldn't hide my surprise.

"I was invisible, remember?" Her smile was sharp as winter. "Who was I going to tell? His broken, mentally ill daughter who no one would believe anyway?"

She moved back to the table, hands flat on the surface, looking every inch the prosecutor she could have been in another life.

"But here's what he never realized—I wasn't broken.

I was waiting. Every dinner where he ignored me, I listened.

Every meeting where I was decoration, I memorized.

Every crime he committed while I sat silent, I filed away.

" Her voice dropped, deadly quiet. "I have seventeen years' worth of his crimes catalogued in my head, waiting for someone to believe me. "

"We believe you," Ivan said simply, and coming from him, it was an oath.

"I know the route his driver takes to the office," Clara continued. "I know which judges golf with him on Saturdays. I know where he hides the burner phone he uses for Kozlov communications—bottom drawer of his desk, behind tax returns from 2012."

She straightened, and in that moment, she wasn't the little girl who needed protection or the submissive who called me Daddy. She was vengeance in human form, twenty-three years of dismissed potential finally given purpose.

"Your father's right about one thing," I said, standing to face her. "You're not the same Clara who disappeared two weeks ago."

"No," she agreed, and her smile was beautiful and terrible. "That Clara was invisible. This one?" She gestured to the laptops, the notes, the carefully documented crimes. "This one is going to be his nightmare."