ELENA
Istare at the Pakhan, and for one stupid second everything else drops away. I can’t focus on the rifles, the men, or the fact that I’ve been drugged and dragged into the forest like a package with my name taped to the side. Just him.
Then my head clears enough for anger to take over again, and thank God for that. “If you’ve been waiting for me,” I say, because my mouth has always had bad timing, “you need better hobbies.”
The corner of his mouth shifts. That’s it. That’s all I get. No laugh, no offense, no irritated little flare of ego. Just the faintest movement, like he’s letting himself enjoy exactly half a second of this. “Still talking,” he observes as his eyes catch on a glimmer of light.
I frown at him. “Still kidnapped.”
To that, he offers an almost apologetic nod. “Yes.”
There’s no excuse wrapped around his admission, no fake courtesy, no attempt to dress this up as something noble or necessary. He says it like the truth is enough. By rule, I detest men who think truth excuses the method—and yet, I can’t seem to put a clear emotion in place for Maksim Volkov.
He steps back and looks past me. “Inside.”
I plant my feet and glare up at him while wholeheartedly wishing he weren’t at least a whole foot taller than me. “No.”
The men around us don’t move much, but the tension pulls tighter, as if the mere idea that anyone could refuse the boss is inadmissible. Maksim doesn’t stop smiling as he glances lazily at the guard on my right. “Is she steady enough to walk?”
I lift my chin. “I’m standing right here.”
“I can see that.” His gaze drifts over me once, quick and blunt. “Whether you’ll still be standing in five minutes is a different question.”
This would be the right time to show fear, and I am afraid. But I also know he’s going to do what he wants to regardless of what I say or feel or do, so I’m damn well not going down without a fight. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”
Maksim chuckles, and his voice washes over me, making me shiver involuntarily before I can even hope he didn’t see it. “You’re already here, moya devochka.”
Yes, that’s definitely condescending. Fuck him and his dark eyes and that infuriating smile.
My mouth opens and shuts again, and something in his expression narrows just slightly, as if he appreciates a clean point more than a loud one. Then he turns and walks into the house without looking back.
He assumes I’ll follow. That specific kind of arrogance makes me want to throw one of his own guards at him. The man beside me clears his throat. “Miss Sokolov.”
I look at him. “Don’t ‘Miss Sokolov’ me like you’re a butler.”
He says nothing, which is smart. I stand there for a second with cold needling through my coat and rage stacking up so fast inside me that I briefly consider doing something dramatic, like screaming, breaking a lamp, or launching myself at the nearest expensive object in reach. None of those plans gets me very far.
Running would be worse. I know it, he knows it, and the guards definitely know it. I’d make it halfway down the drive if I got lucky, then someone would haul me back inside by the arm, and all I’d have to show for it would be ruined tights and a bruised ego.
Still, I turn to the guard beside me and give him my sweetest smile. “If anyone grabs me again, I’m going for the eyes first. Tell your boss I’m trying to be polite.”
He actually shifts back half a step, which is so satisfying I almost feel human again.
Maksim hasn’t killed me, and in my current circumstances that counts as useful information.
If my father has managed to turn me into somebody’s problem, then there are worse men than this one looking for me.
Of all the wolves circling tonight, this one looks like the kind who at least keeps records.
So I square my shoulders, fix my coat, and walk inside on my own.
The entrance hall is all stone floors and dark wood.
It doesn’t take me a minute to realize this family is built with old money, and the history tracks.
The Volkovs were making money back when half the city was still killing for corners and fuel coupons, first through prison routes, then diesel, then metals moving out through rail and port corridors nobody touched without permission.
By the time other Bratva families were still acting like street crews in expensive coats, the Volkovs had already moved into trucking, bonded warehouses, shipping contracts, and private security fronts clean enough to sit under government noses without setting them off.
There’s a long table against one wall under a shaded lamp, a red runner, oil portraits on the stair landing, and the kind of silence that only exists in houses where everyone knows who holds power.
This isn’t some rich criminal’s fantasy, but a family seat.
Maksim angles his head just enough so he can see me coming, and that smile of his grows a notch.
I resist the urge to smack it clean off his face and follow as he leads me down a corridor and into a study that somehow manages to be colder than the night outside, even with a fire lit in the black marble hearth.
He gestures to a chair. “Sit.”
“No.”
He takes off his gloves slowly, one finger at a time, and sets them down on the table. “You’re going to.”
I fist my hands into tight little balls. “Try asking prettier.”
His eyes come back to mine, and I almost lose my breath with how deep they are. “Sit down, Elena.”
Nothing about his voice rises and that makes it harder to resist his command even when I want to attack him. I stay upright for another second on principle, then my balance tips, and I grab the back of the chair before my knees make a public statement.
His gaze drops to my hand, then back to my face. “Good girl.”
I bare my teeth. “Go to hell.”
He raises a brow. “I live here.”
The answer is so dry I almost laugh, which is deeply offensive.
I sit because fainting in front of him would be humiliating and I’ve had enough humiliation for one night. He sits across from me, opens his coat, and slides a thick file onto the table.
I look at it, then at him. “If that’s a ransom demand, this is awkward. I don’t have enough money to replace your tires, let alone myself.”
He shakes his head. “It’s not a ransom demand.”
“Then start with your name, since your men were too busy drugging me to handle introductions.”
“You know my name.”
“Humor me anyway.” I’m probably being stupid, but this is how I begin a conversation out in the normal world—by getting to know the other person’s name. It makes me feel grounded, and I could do with some of that in here.
He chuckles again, and his voice is deep and light at the same time. “Maksim Volkov.”
I lean back as far as the chair allows. “Lovely. Elena Sokolov. You’ve heard of me.”
He presses his lips together and nods. “Yes.” Then, he opens the file and turns it toward me. “Read.”
I glance down before I can stop myself, and for a second I don’t understand what I’m looking at. It’s a filing. Clean formatting. Registry notation. Supplemental holding structure. Cross-reference language. One of those deeply ugly corporate pages that only lawyers and accountants pretend to love.
Then I see my name. I look up, frowning at him. “This is fake.”
He’s watching me steadily, without any movement. “No.”
My frown deepens. “It has to be.”
“It doesn’t.”
I pull the page closer. The seal is real. The paper looks real. The filing number is either real or backed by a very expensive lie. My name appears in full, spelled correctly, pulled from a source that knew who I was.
Elena Sergeyevna Sokolova.
Shareholder and conditional approval signatory under a subsidiary linked to a freight company I’ve never heard of.
I turn the page to another filing, another entity.
Warehousing this time. Then fuel distribution.
Then an export company that loops through more than one jurisdiction before coming back with a respectable face.
My mouth dries out for a completely different reason now. “This is bluff,” I utter, though the words come out weak and my voice is shaking. “A file full of paper doesn’t prove anything.”
His expression doesn’t move. “Keep reading.”
I flip again and come across stacks of similar papers—a temporary directorship form, a beneficiary acknowledgment, a tax declaration, and a maintenance update on dormant corporate structures.
My palms feel clammy even though it’s so cold. This is, in part, because I know some of these papers.
Momentarily, I’m not in this study anymore.
I’m back in my father’s house, standing in the office at the back where everything smelled like printer toner, leather, and whatever cologne he used when he wanted to look like a respectable man discussing respectable things.
He’d call me in sometimes when I was seventeen, eighteen, nineteen.
“Educational,” he’d say. Or, “You want to be a lawyer, don’t you? ”
Or, “This is family maintenance, Elena. Learn how structures work and men will stop lying to you so easily.”
I signed some things back then. Early on, I still thought there was a way to take pieces of his help without taking the world attached to it.
I push the file away as my eyes sting. “No.”
Maksim watches me, hands loose, posture easy in that way powerful men have when they know they don’t need to crowd anyone to own it. “You recognize them.”
I manage to speak through a dry throat. “I recognize paperwork my father put in front of me when I was too young to understand how much damage can hide inside a signature.”
Maksim’s eyes narrow. “So you do recognize them.”
I look up sharply. “Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Talk to me like I’m helping you build your case.”
His gaze holds. “You are.”
For one second I just stare at him.
Then I let out a short laugh. “You abduct me, drag me to your house, have your men put a needle in my neck, sit me down in front of a stack of filings with my name on them, and now you want me to what? Compliment the organization?”