45. Chapter 45
45
Maksim
A moment ago
I watch Leonid haul the kid toward the lavatory like he’s handling an armed bomb. My great Pakhan of the Bratva reduced to toilet duty. If I hadn’t seen it myself, I wouldn’t believe it.
Elijah is giggling like Leonid just pulled a rabbit out of a hat. That’s not normal. Kids don’t laugh around Leonid. Hell, grown men don’t laugh around him unless it’s nervously and they’re signing their wills.
And yet, here we are. Him, ferrying a kid to the toilet, and me sitting here with a front-row seat to the strangest sight of my life.
But it’s not the giggle that gets me. It’s the way the kid looks. That unshakable confidence, and blyat, the more I stare at the kid, the more I can’t ignore the feeling in my gut—the one whispering that this isn’t a coincidence.
Elijah’s got the same tilt to his head—the kind that screams, “You can’t tell me shit.” The same scowl when something doesn’t go his way.
And those eyes?
I’ve seen them before. In a photo Leonid’s father used to keep on his desk. The resemblance isn’t close. It’s exact.
I lean back in my seat, fingers drumming against the armrest. Five years ago, we went to The Viper’s Nest. It wasn’t supposed to be messy—just find out who the hell was running the place, figure out if they were laundering through it, and decide whether they needed to be crushed. Simple. Clean. Except Leonid didn’t stick to the plan.
He disappeared the second he saw her. The woman in red. Clara Caldwell, though I didn’t know her name at the time. She wasn’t just some girl in the wrong place—someone tried to kill her that night. Leonid stepped in, and the entire operation went sideways. For hours, he was gone. With her. And when he showed up the next day? He acted like nothing happened. Like the night hadn’t just gone to hell.
And now?
Now, there’s this kid, looking like a carbon copy of my boss, clutching a stuffed Pikachu and turning Leonid into someone I don’t recognize. Toilet runs. Small talk. Like he’s some kind of father. If I hadn’t seen it myself, I wouldn’t believe it.
The timing, the features—it’s not just coincidence. It can’t be. And I don’t need Leonid to tell me. Hell, I don’t even need to ask him. I need proof.
A DNA test. Simple. Quick. Quiet. No one even has to know I’m doing it.
And if the results prove what my balls already know? Pakhan will probably gut me like a fish and use my intestines as Christmas decorations.
I smirk. But fuck it—some shit’s worth dying for.