20. Dominik #2
She goes to the kitchen to warm milk and pour cereal for Mila. I stand in the doorway and watch Mila bend over the page, tongue between her teeth, already lost in the book.
The phone vibrates in my pocket. I don’t answer it inside the house. I step out onto the veranda and close the door behind me.
“Talk,” I say.
Gleb doesn’t waste time. “Two hours,” he says. “That’s all I needed.”
“What did you hear?”
“Enough to know where the pressure’s pointing,” he replies. “Not enough to tell you how it ends.”
I lean against the railing and look out at the street. It’s still. That doesn’t mean nothing is moving.
“And?”
“And the marriage shifted things the way you wanted,” he says. “They’re pissed off, but they’re not scrambling. Which means they’re deciding whether to wait it out or force something small to see the next move.”
I don’t answer.
Gleb doesn’t fill the silence. He lets it sit long enough that I know the next part matters.
“They’re past asking who pulled her out,” he says at last. “That question’s closed.”
“So they’re sure,” I say.
“They’re sure enough to stop pretending otherwise,” he replies. “Now they’re talking about containment. Not punishment. That’s interesting.”
I lean into the railing and look at the street again. A cat slips from one yard to another. Somewhere, a door shuts. Ordinary sounds, and they don’t clear my head.
“How?” I ask.
“With you, once they know, they’ll move slowly,” Gleb says. “You already felt it. Contacts going dull. Access turning polite. Doors that still open but take longer. They’re not cutting you off all at once because that would look like fear. They tighten, then ease off, and see how far you go.”
“And Ana?”
“Marriage doesn’t free her,” he says. “What’s more, they’ve started watching her, trying to figure out who she married. They don’t know for sure, but they’ve got ideas.”
There’s a pause, just long enough.
“She’s not the leverage anymore,” he says. “At least, not the obvious kind.”
My hand tightens on the phone. “Then what is?”
“The paper.” Gleb drops the shell. “Markov’s private ledger.”
I shut my eyes for a second, then open them again. It all comes back. I made a habit of not thinking about that book. Some things stay buried because digging them up costs more than they give.
“Talk,” I say.
“It isn’t just money,” he replies. “It never was. It’s a record. Who signed off. Who took payment. What got traded when cash wasn’t enough.”
“And?”
“It ties councilmen straight to Markov’s off-book work,” Gleb says. “Not stories. Proof. Dates, names, handwriting, that sort of thing. Things that don’t go away if they surface.”
I can picture it without trying. Heavy pages. Ink pressed deep. Markov liked permanence.
“There’s more,” Gleb continues. “There’s language in it about inheritance. It’s not legal, but it’s internal, for the Bratva. It treats Ana as unsettled business after Markov died with exact terms and conditions. The wording leaves space for enforcement.”
My grip tightens on the phone.
“And it doesn’t stop with her,” I say.
“No,” he answers, steady. “Children are listed too. It’s not spelled out, but it’s clear enough. Tied to the debt. Part of how they balance things if something goes sideways.”
I breathe out slowly. “So if a deal collapses, the child becomes leverage.”
“That’s the idea,” Gleb says. “Everything’s written down ahead of time so nobody has to make shit up on the spot.”
Markov overreached. Now someone thinks they can inherit what he left behind and finish the accounting.
“That ledger is the last clean hold they’ve got,” Gleb says. “Not because they can use it out in the open. Because if it disappears or ends up somewhere it shouldn’t, half the council goes down with it. That’s why they left Ana alone while they thought it was secure.”
“And now?”
“Now, they don’t know where you stand,” he says. “You married her. You moved her. You burned a recovery crew. From where they sit, you look like a man who might already be holding the book.”
I almost laugh. Almost.
“I don’t,” I say.
“I know,” Gleb replies. “They don’t. And they can’t ask without admitting how much it matters.”
“So they pressure me,” I say.
“They watch you,” he corrects. “Places where records get checked. Places where names go on paper. A neighbor who gets curious at the wrong time. They want to see if you react like a man protecting something or a man running a bluff.”
I look back through the glass. Mila is on the floor, coloring hard, her sword beside her. Ana stands at the counter, pouring milk, shoulders tight even from here.
“If they confirm I don’t have it?” I say.
“Then they’ll act to get it,” Gleb says. “That’s when Ana stops being background. She becomes useful again. Not as a widow. As a loose end.”
I let the silence carry that.
“Two ways this goes now,” he says. “You stay in the open, let them box you in slowly. Or you put the ledger back in play. That forces their hand.”
“And which do you recommend?”
He lets out a breath. “I don’t recommend shit. I tell you what the weather looks like.”
“And the weather is?”
“Changing,” he says. The line clicks dead.
The ledger. I’d hoped it died with Markov. It’s been sitting there all this time, heavy and patient, waiting for the right moment to matter again. And now it does.
My phone lights up. One message. I open it.
Hello, this is the clinic following up on recent lab work for Mila. The doctor would like to schedule an additional confirmatory test. Please call us at your earliest convenience.
I read it twice. Then I glance up. Ana’s on the other side of the glass door, still as stone.