9. Zoya
ZOYA
T he computer screen flickers to life as I settle into my chair at the track office.
Another day of counting dirty money, another day of pretending I don't know what the numbers really mean.
But today is different. Today I'm not here to balance ledgers or process bets.
Today I'm here to find the truth about what Damir has been doing with his money.
I wait until Yana steps out for her smoke break before I minimize the track's accounting software and open a web browser. I have maybe fifteen minutes before someone might notice what I'm doing.
Banking websites are tricky to navigate without the right credentials, but I know Damir's patterns. He's always been predictable with passwords, using variations of dates and places that mean something to him. I start with his primary bank, the one where he's always kept his legitimate earnings.
The login screen asks for his account number and password. I try his birthday combined with our old address. Invalid. Then our father's name with the year he disappeared. Invalid. On the third attempt, I try our mother's maiden name with the year we moved to Moscow. The screen loads, and I'm in.
The account balance makes my stomach drop.
Twelve hundred rubles. For someone who claims to be making regular money from drug sales, this is nothing.
I scroll through the transaction history, looking for patterns.
Regular deposits stopped three months ago.
Since then, only small withdrawals for basic expenses.
Food, utilities, bus fare. Survival money.
This doesn't match what he told me. He said business was good, that he was making steady money but keeping it quiet. He said he was being careful, not flashy. But careful doesn't mean empty. If he's dealing drugs and making the kind of money he claimed, where is it going?
I check his other accounts, the ones I know about from years of handling his paperwork when he was too busy or too drunk to deal with it himself. Same pattern. Empty or nearly empty, with only minimal activity. No large deposits, no signs of the steady income he described.
The browser window suddenly fills with a security warning. Too many failed login attempts. I close it quickly and open a new tab, my pulse racing. I need to be more careful. These systems track everything, and if someone notices unusual activity on Damir's accounts, it could lead back to me.
Footsteps in the hallway make me freeze. I quickly close the browser and bring up the track's accounting software, pretending to review yesterday's betting receipts. Yana back walks in, smelling of cigarettes and cheap perfume.
"Busy morning?" she asks, settling into her chair across from me.
"The usual. Numbers don't balance themselves."
She nods and starts her own work, sorting through receipts and invoices.
I wait until she's fully absorbed in her task before I try again.
This time, I use the track's financial research tools, legitimate software that lets us check customer credit histories and banking relationships.
It's designed for verifying large bets, but it can also trace financial connections.
I enter Damir's information into the system, searching for any banking relationships that might not show up in his primary accounts. The search takes several minutes, and I watch the progress bar crawl across the screen while pretending to review betting slips.
The results are limited but revealing. Three bank accounts connected to his passport number, the two I already found, plus one more.
A business account opened six months ago under a company name I don't recognize, Meridian Import Solutions .
The account shows significant activity, but the details are restricted.
I make note of the company name and bank, then clear the search history.
Whatever Damir is doing, it's not the small-time dealing he described.
Import solutions suggests something bigger, more organized.
International connections. The kind of operation that would require serious backing and serious connections.
Yana looks up from her work. "Everything okay? You look pale."
"Uh, yes..." I tell her, forcing my voice to stay steady. "Just feeling feverish."
She nods and returns to her receipts, but I can feel her watching me from the corner of her eye.
I finish the morning's real work as quickly as possible, balancing the books and filing the necessary reports.
All the while, I'm thinking about who might be watching me. About how much danger I might be in.
By lunch, I can't concentrate on anything.
I tell Yana I'm not feeling well and leave early, walking the long way home through side streets and checking frequently to see if anyone is following me.
The city feels more threatening now. Every stranger on the street could be watching me.
Every parked car could contain someone with instructions to keep me under surveillance, and I swear someone is tracking my movement. Someone who isn't Maksim.
The apartment building in Sokolnik almost doesn't feel welcoming now. I climb the stairs to the third floor, my keys ready before my phone rings. The sound makes me jump, and I nearly drop the notebook. The caller ID shows the same unknown number from before.
"Zoya."
"Damir." I close the notebook and lean against the wall. "Are you having me watched now?"
"I'm having you protected. There's a difference."
"Protected from what? From finding out the truth about what you've been doing?"
His sigh carries through the phone, heavy with exhaustion. "From getting killed because you're asking the wrong questions to the wrong people."
"Then maybe you should have thought about that before you started whatever this is. Before you started lying to me."
The pause on the other end tells me he feels guilty, but he won’t change what he's doing. "I lied to protect you."
"You lied to use me. Don't pretend this was about protection."
"Both things can be true, Zoya. I need you safe and uninformed because the moment you know what I'm really involved in, you become a target."
I scoff, upset and pacing near my door now. My palm presses flat on my head. "What if this goes bad, Damir? You swore you were innocent, that you didn't do it. Why are you hiding, then? Just tell them."
"You don't understand. The Vetrovs aren't the real threat. They're just one player in a much bigger game."
"Then explain it to me. Tell me what game you're playing."
"I can't. Not over the phone. Not from where I am."
"Then where can we meet?" I'm panicked, hugging my arms over my stomach.
"We can't. It's too dangerous. If they see us together?—"
"They already know we're connected. They already know you're my brother. Meeting changes nothing."
"It changes everything. Right now, you're an unknown quantity.
You could be innocent, you could be involved, you could be useful, you could be a threat.
As long as they don't know which, you have value.
You have leverage. But if they see us together, if they know you're actively helping me, you become a target. "
I lean back against the wall, staring at the ceiling. "So what do you want me to do? Just keep lying to Maksim? Keep pretending I don't know anything?"
"What the fuck, Zoya! I want you to get out. Leave Moscow. Go somewhere they can't find you."
"I'm not leaving you," I hiss, terrified he will force me to leave.
"Then stop trying to save me. Stop getting involved with Maksim. Stop digging into things you don't understand."
"I can't do that either."
"Why not?"
The question is honest, but I realize I don't have a good answer.
Or rather, I have an answer I don't want to give.
Because the truth is, I don't want to stop seeing Maksim.
I need answers from him, and if Damir won't give them to me, maybe Maksim will.
Besides, he's been more present in my life for the past two weeks than my brother has for months.
"Because I'm close," I say finally. "He's starting to trust me. If I can get more information?—"
"Information about what? You don't even know what you're looking for."
"Then tell me what to look for. Tell me what you need."
"I need you to be safe. I need you to stay away from this. I need you to trust me when I tell you that the only way to protect yourself is to walk away."
"And I need you to trust me when I tell you that I can't do that. Not anymore."
"Why not?"
Because when Maksim looks at me, I feel seen in a way that's dangerous and addictive.
Because the line between performance and reality is already blurring, and I'm not sure I mind.
Because despite everything I've learned today, despite all the evidence of Damir's betrayal, Maksim feels more real than anything else in my life.
"Because I'm already too deep," I say instead. "Because walking away now would be more dangerous than staying. Because if I disappear suddenly, it will tell them everything they need to know."
"Maybe. Or maybe it will save your life."
"Or maybe it will get us both killed. If I'm valuable to them as an asset, then I'm also valuable as a bargaining chip. If I disappear, they'll assume you took me. They'll hunt us both."
The line goes quiet for a long moment. "When did you get so smart about this?"
"When I realized my brother was using me as a pawn in a game I didn't even know we were playing."
"I never wanted you involved in this," he admits with sadness in his tone.
"But you involved me anyway. You made me part of it the moment you decided my connections and skills were valuable."
"I was trying to protect you."
"You were trying to protect your investment in me. There's a difference."
"What do you want me to say, Zoya?"
"I want you to tell me the truth. All of it. Let me decide what I can handle."
"I have to go. I have a text to send," he says, and I know this is where the conversation ends.
He's never going to tell me what's going on, and now that I'm in this far, I won't walk away.
Maksim is hunting him because of that man who died, and somehow, Damir is to blame.
I need to know if he is really the person who did that or if, like he told me to start with, he's completely innocent of it.
I hang up before he can lecture me again, then switch to my other phone and type out a message.
Zoya: 6:15 PM: Would you like to have dinner again tomorrow? I've been thinking about what you said.
I hit send before I can second-guess myself. The response comes back within minutes.
Maksim: 6:18 PM: Yes. I'll pick you up at seven.
I put the phone away and rub my forehead. Damir is right about one thing. I am crossing a line. But maybe that's what it takes to survive in this world. Maybe the only way to protect what's left of my family is to become someone else entirely.
I lean back on the wall next to my door and sigh. Tomorrow, I'll sit across from Maksim Vetrov again, and I'll let him pull me deeper into his web. Because despite everything Damir said, despite all the warnings and all the fear, I want to see where this leads.
Even if it means I can't find my way back.
Even if it means I don't want to.