Chapter 26
CLARA
The office is quiet, the sort of hush that settles in after hours, when the tap of keyboards, the low hum of conversation, and the click of heels have faded.
My desk lamp throws a narrow circle of light across piles of folders and files—case notes, audit reports, attendance logs—all meticulously arranged, yet somehow chaotic under the weight of what we’re searching for.
Pavel sits across from me, his brow furrowed, hands steepled together as he scans another spreadsheet, eyes darting over numbers and names. I can almost hear his mind working, hunting for the anomaly that will shine light on the mole.
We’ve been at this for hours, working as methodically as surgeons, dissecting every detail. Somewhere in these documents is the answer to who the mole is, the person who knows too much and moves too quietly.
Pavel points to yet another name as we cross-check employee access logs against schedules, but I shake my head. “Not her. She was out for jury duty the week of the breach. Alibi checks out.”
Another hour, and a headache is starting to pulse behind my eyes. The silence, punctuated only by the turning of pages or the click of a mouse, is beginning to buzz in my ears, and I have a sudden urge to fill it with something, anything.
“So where exactly are you from?” I’m not even sure why the question popped into my head. I could have turned music on, but the words came out before I could stop them.
I don’t expect Pavel to answer. I think he’ll probably just give me a look and return to work.
But after a moment, I’m surprised when he says, “A small village outside of St. Petersburg. We moved there when I was a child because my father found work.”
“Oh.”
I’m honestly not sure what else to say. I didn’t expect a response and hadn’t thought that far ahead. Then another question surfaces. “How long have you known Dmitri?”
“I met Dmitri at school when we were boys. My parents didn’t like him because they’d heard rumors about his family, but I didn’t care.”
“You’re very loyal to him.” It’s a given, but if he’s willing to talk, I’m going to get as much out of him as possible.
“That is what it means to be vory v zakone.”
“I keep hearing that, but I have no idea what it means.”
“Thieves-in-law is the exact translation, but it is much more than that. We take an oath to uphold the brotherhood. When I first moved to St. Petersburg, the other boys would come after me. Dmitri didn’t even know me, but he had my back, and he’s had my loyalty ever since.”
I haven’t heard Pavel string this many words together since, well, ever. Even working together, it’s usually one-word answers or a truncated sentence at most.
“Why are you telling me this? I have a feeling you’re not just making conversation.”
His mouth quirks into something that resembles a smile.
“Because Dmitri isn’t a good guy, and I won’t tell you differently.
If you’re going to do this, you have to know what you’re getting into.
I won’t pretend to know what Andrey has told you, or what you’ve read in the papers.
But even if Dmitri isn’t a good guy, he is a good man—he lives by his word, and he doesn’t do anything indiscriminately.
He is not evil for evil’s sake; his business is his business and nothing more. ”
I’m not entirely sure I agree with that assessment.
Surely, with a billion-dollar international corporation, you can find another way to do business.
Can someone follow a specific code of living while still being on the wrong side of the law?
Not only on the wrong side of the law, but creating a billion-dollar empire from it?
More importantly, does that distinction matter to me?
“What was he like as a kid?”
Pavel eyes me suspiciously.
“Indulge me. I’m going to have a kid running around who’s half him, and I want to know what I’m in for.”
The big man chuckles, and I don’t know whether it’s because he’s remembering Dmitri as a child, or if it’s because he knows I’m in for a world of hurt.
“He hasn’t changed much. Dmitri is Dmitri—he’s always been quiet and watchful. I think other kids mistook that quiet for timidness or stupidity. If they tried him, they found out very quickly they were wrong. He’s always watching, always calculating, always planning.”
“You said his family had a reputation?”
“Everyone knew they were vory v zakone, even before we became what we are. His grandfather spent time in a Siberian prison, met and married a woman up there, and returned to make a fortune any way he could. That man’s cruelty and mercilessness are legendary.
You did not cross Konstantin Konstantinovich, or his son. ”
“Or his grandson?”
“Dmitri was always different, and his father hated it. His mother wasn’t able to have any more children after Dmitri, and his father drove her away for the shame of it.”
His mother left him, just like mine left me.
“His father couldn’t abide having a child who had a heart. He tried to beat it out of him, drive him out of it—”
“Drive him out of it?”
Pavel gives me a look that I can’t quite interpret, but I also don’t think I want to. Not when I know his grandfather and father were notoriously ruthless Russian mobsters with terrible reputations. I’m not sure I ever want to know the horrible things his father did to toughen his son up.
“Did it—” I start, but don’t finish.
“To a point, yes.” Pavel shrugs. “And for the better. You cannot be pakhan of a bratva, you cannot be vory v zakone, if you are soft. You do things that kill your soul piece by piece. That is part of our life in the brotherhood.”
“But—” I urge, wanting, no needing, to understand the man I’m tying my life to.
“He learned,” Pavel replies. He pauses, his eyes moving to the ceiling for a moment, as if thinking over his next words. “But even though he sometimes thinks he has no heart, that it shriveled up and died as his father wished, that’s not entirely true.”
“I know; I’ve seen it.” My reply is quiet, and I realize I’m waiting for confirmation that I’m not imagining things. I let out the breath I was holding when Pavel nods.
“Da.”
It’s the only confirmation I need.
“Lauren softened him.”
“What happened after—” I start to ask.
“He lost himself entirely. Almost didn’t come back. His father and grandfather would have been proud of what he became during that time. Many people paid in blood.” Pavel shakes his head, his eyes far away, remembering another time, another place, his blue eyes turning cold.
I don’t ask anything else. I don’t want to know. I’ve seen the terrifying side of Dmitri, but to know the possibility of something worse prowling there somewhere deep in his darkest shadows scares the living daylights out of me.
“That wasn’t the real Dmitri, though.” Pavel’s voice breaks through my spiraling anxieties. “That was grief-induced madness, as such a loss would drive anyone to.”
I can’t argue with that. Grief does terrible things. Although my mother didn’t die, my father still fell apart when she left.
“He is a good pakhan, a strong pakhan. He does not hesitate to do what must be done. But only to a point; he will not go to those places his grandfather and father did, where others go.
Pavel’s attention is pointed, and the face that pops up in my head is Andrey. I’m pretty sure that guy’s soul isn’t just damaged or dark—it’s missing entirely.
So he might do evil things, but Dmitri is not an evil man.
If I want to stay with him, I will have to choose between the light and the gray space that lies between that and darkness.
There is no other way—either I accept that, accept that it will always have a place in my life if I stay with Dmitri—or face a world without him in it.
A world I don’t want to be in.
“Thank you for telling me.”
Pavel nods.
We have to figure out who this damn mole is before they do more damage.
The next suspect is a tech from IT. A glance at his personnel file reveals a transfer within the department three months ago, long before any of this mess started.
“He’s clean,” Pavel says, and I don’t disagree.
Our pool narrows, and my pulse quickens on the edge of anticipation.
We’re close now, closer than we’ve ever been.
A name pops up that gets our attention: Mark Palmer.
He’s one of my paralegals. He’s diligent, but a little too eager, a little too quick to volunteer for late hours and document runs.
He always seems to know when I’m coming or going, which at first I thought was simply being helpful and earning brownie points, but now the shadow of a hunch grows.
Pavel leans back, rubs his temples, and murmurs, “We need to talk to him.”
I hold Pavel’s gaze. “I agree, but I have to be the one to talk with him. We don’t want to scare him away before we can catch him in the act. We’ll slip him some bad information so we can follow it.”
Pavel nods.
The next afternoon, I’m jittery as I send Mark a message.
Coffee break at two?
He replies in the affirmative a few minutes later, and at two o’clock on the dot, we’re sitting at a table in the small café tucked beside the building lobby.
He’s fidgety, tapping his fingers on his cup, eyes never quite meeting mine.
I try to keep the conversation casual, letting it sit under the guise of a superior checking in, so he can settle into the illusion of comfort.
Mark is tall and slim, with a head of dark, curly hair he keeps pushing away from his glasses. He’s young, maybe a year or two out of college, just a few years younger than me.
“I heard you were working late yesterday,” I say, carefully watching his reaction. “Your hard work doesn’t go unnoticed, you know. You stay later than most of the paralegals. Don’t work yourself too hard; the job can suck your soul dry, if you let it.”
Mark brushes the ever-present curl from his forehead, his cheeks slightly pink at the praise. Or maybe it’s embarrassment? Guilt? “Yeah, I had to finish the Owens file. But it’s okay. I like the work, and I like keeping busy.”
The Owens file was closed out the day before.
I sip my coffee, masking my nerves, as Mark and I continue to chat.
Mark talks fast, but I also know that’s just who he is.
He’s always in a hurry, so that isn’t necessarily a sign of guilt.
I wonder if I’m going to get anything out of him today.
Is he even capable of being the mole? Or are we looking in the wrong direction?
“So how are you feeling?”
Mark’s question jerks me out of my spiraling anxieties. “Sorry?”
“How are you feeling?” he repeats. I tilt my head, wondering what kind of answer the paralegal is looking for.
“You know, the doctor’s appointments for—” He mimes pregnancy with a rounding gesture of his hands over his stomach. My own stomach flips.
“Oh, you’ve noticed?” I ask nonchalantly.
He shrugs and sips at his coffee. “I noticed your appointments on your calendar.”
“Oh, got it.”
Mark is the mole, and he’s talking to Andrey! The last piece of the puzzle slips into place.
I never put where I was going on the calendar. I didn’t want to tip Dmitri off, and I had yet to tell anyone in the office about the pregnancy. There is no way Mark would know about those appointments. He had to have followed me.
I make the excuse that I have to speak to someone in compliance and head back to the office.
I call Pavel.
“Did you get anything?”
“He knows things he shouldn’t. I think we’re on the right path.”
A terrible realization settles in.
I’ve just signed the man’s death warrant.