“That’s not reassuring,” she whispers. “They’d skin a man alive to get information out of him.”
While we have other methods, I don’t deny that our interrogators can be brutal. “If he answers our interrogators’ questions honestly and divulges information, then he has nothing to worry about.”
“He won’t talk,” Aleksandra says. “He’s too proud to betray the bratva. He’d sooner die.”
I disagree. We’ve had men divulge secrets when held against their will, threatened and tortured. And while he might not care about his own life, he would be devastated if we destroyed the entire bratva organization, his legacy.
“Don’t worry about Mikhail,” I assure her.
I escort her across the hall to my office so that I may have a moment alone with Aurielo and Jacopo. My hand is on the small of her back as I usher her inside, flipping the light on after I open the door.
“Planning on locking me in here?”
“No, I just need to have a moment alone with my men.”
“Can I see my children?” Aleksandra asks.
“I’ll bring them to you. Just wait here.” I gesture for her to stay put while I head to the living room. The twins are seated with the other children. “Sophia, Liam, do you want to see your mom?”
They jump up from the floor and follow me, bouncing in the hallway, down the corridor to my office.
I open the door, ushering them inside and shutting it before I head back down to find a team that can interrogate Mikhail successfully.
While I can do the deed, I don’t want his blood on my hands. Not with Aleksandra under the same roof.
* * *
“She hasn’t tried to leave, sir,” Mario says as I approach the office.
I decided it wasn’t necessary to lock her in physically. The door is shut, and a guard is standing outside the door.
She isn’t going far, and with two noisy kids, she isn’t going to get by without being seen.
“Good,” I say.
“Any news about downstairs?” Mario asks, remarking about the prisoner.
“My men are on it.” I won’t elaborate. There isn’t anything specific to tell until the interrogation is complete, and I’m not sure Mario is a man I’d confide in, either.
While I trust him standing guard in front of a door, he’s not someone I’d divulge our secrets to. At least not yet.
I open the door to my office and stand at the entrance, stunned by the amount of chaos from only a short time.
“I wasn’t sure how long you were planning on keeping me in your office,” Aleksandra says.
“Well, it didn’t take long for you to let your children run through here like two little tornadoes,” I quip.
The kids have gotten into practically everything that wasn’t locked up in the desk. Papers are skewed over the floor; paperclips are tossed freely; pens are stacked like a woodblock tower.
Did Aleksandra permit them to make a mess of my office?
“I prefer to think of them like a hurricane,” Aleksandra says with a sly grin.
“Do you think this is funny?” I glance at my watch. “Fifteen minutes. That’s how long I was gone.”
“I know,” she says with a smirk. “Do you think they did all this? Next time, you won’t keep my children from me.”
She’s giving me a headache. I rub my forehead and glance down at the two children attempting to dismount the pens to make a racetrack for their paperclip vehicles.