Maksim
An hour after she leaves the study, I’m still at the desk, and the papers in front of me might as well be blank.
They matter. Tomorrow at eleven, I sit across from men tied to Moretti and hear how far they plan to push.
I like my board clean. I like knowing where a man will step before he gets his act together enough to call it a move.
I like having boots on the soil before anyone thinks to test the ground.
Tonight, none of that is landing right because her scent is still in here, caught in the wood, the leather, the front of my shirt.
The blue folder she left behind sits at the edge of the desk, my thumbprint still pressed into the corner.
A knock comes at the door.
“Come in.”
Leonid steps inside.
I point at the folder. “Be careful with that. She found it once. She’ll look again.”
He leaves, and I’m alone again with my thoughts.
I turn the paperweight once, then again.
I need to be working. I fold my arms, lean back, and stare at the far wall, asking why the hell I’m still sitting here if my head’s someplace else.
The office smells of smoke, old paper, leather, and the whiskey I poured twenty minutes ago and haven’t touched.
Under it, her scent still lingers. Clean skin.
Iris, amber, cold rose, expensive and warm. Faint now, but not faint enough.
I shake my head and look back down at the Moretti file.
MORETTI is stamped in the upper right corner, businesslike and stripped of decoration, neat enough to make the contents look almost respectable.
Even that name isn’t doing its job. I keep seeing her.
The way she stood her ground, chin up, eyes straight on mine, the tilt of her mouth when she’s about to say something that’ll cost her and she says it anyway.
The way her teeth catch her lower lip, pressing in just enough to leave a faint mark, throwing her questions, demanding answers, her eyes on me the whole time like she’s enjoying watching me lose ground.
I drag a hand over my face, then look down again.
The folder sits open, tab bent just enough to catch my eye.
Moretti’s name sits in the corner, clean and tucked away where it belongs, while Elena’s drags in the Blacklist, Sokolov, legal access, and every man who smells weakness and calls it opportunity.
Elena is mine to protect before they start circling.
I push back from the desk and walk to the window.
Outside, the trees stand stripped down, branches bare, nothing hiding what they are.
That’s what tomorrow is going to be. Strip everything down until no one can hide what they are.
Tomorrow, she sits at that table with me. She needs to know what she’s walking into, and she’s going to hear it from their own mouths. No filters. No favors.
By the time I get up and head for the stairs, I’ve locked it in. She’s coming with me, and she’s going to understand exactly what her name sounds like when men start placing bets.
Morning hits early, gray through the windows by the time I’m dressed.
Breakfast is already laid out when I step into the office sitting room. Tea throws up steam. Silver covers sit in a clean row across the tray, everything in its place because this house runs better when nobody has to guess.
I tear a page off the desk pad and write in block letters, slanted enough to show speed, clean enough to leave no room for argument.
Join me at eleven. Outside parties present. Listen more than you speak.
I pause, then add,
Eat first.
I read it once, fold it in half, then ring for Mrs. Wentworth.
When she steps in, I hand her the note with the tray. “Take this to Elena,” I say. “Put it in her hand. Don’t leave it outside the door.”
She’s almost out the door when I call her back. “Mrs. W.”
She turns, chin lifting a fraction. “Sir.”
“Take her something she can keep down.”
She pauses just long enough to register it, a small flicker in her eyes before it’s gone. Then she settles back into form, straight-backed, voice even, very English. “I’ll take her tea, then,” she says. “Lemon. Toast with butter. A soft-boiled egg.”
I nod once. “Very good.”
Simple food, enough to steady her before she walks into a room where men lay out terms and keep looking at her like she’s already on the table.
Mrs. Wentworth takes the tray and the note and goes.
If she skips breakfast just to prove a point, I’m going to sit through that meeting watching her hold her ground on nothing but nerve and stubborn pride, and somehow, I know that’s going to land back on me. She’d rather run on that than give me the win.
By the time I walk into the strategy room, my people are already in place. A notebook and pen sit at every place setting.
Nobody wastes my time with greetings. Chairs scrape back as I walk in.
Leonid closes the folder in front of him and gets to his feet first. He’s the one who keeps ownership in place, transfers moving, and the structure from falling apart because some fool signed the wrong page.
Elena’s name sits inside that structure, and Leonid knows exactly where.
Karpov rises next, silver starting at his temples, suit spotless, expression unreadable.
He isn’t built like a street thug. He looks managerial, controlled, the kind of man who can sound reasonable while setting up your ruin.
He has enough standing in this house to ask hard questions and expect answers.
Petrov stands last, silent as ever. He handles freight, corridor movement, port pressure, and loss.
I move to the head of the table, jacket buttoned, cuffs clean, and pull out the chair on my right before I sit. I wave a hand, and the others take their places, the gesture landing harder than a speech would.
I sit, and everyone settles around me.
A second later, the door opens again, and Elena walks in. Leonid’s face gives nothing away, but his hand stills on the file. Karpov clears his throat and drops his gaze to his laptop like it suddenly needs him.
Good. Let them get their act together.
She’s in a dark dress under a fitted coat, clean lines, no fuss, the kind of thing that blends in until you look twice.
Her hair is pinned back, showing the cut of her cheekbones and the line of her jaw.
A few strands have slipped loose and rest against her temple and neck, almost softening what could read as strict.
Her eyes, hazel and steady, go straight to me first. She still carries last night in the set of her mouth, the tension in her shoulders, and the way she looks at me, fire snapping and not going anywhere. Looking like that, she's the kind of trouble a man needs to keep his hands off and never would.
The men clock it right away. Men who’ve spent years treating women as something to buy and place suddenly don’t know where to land their eyes. They look, pull back, then check again like they’re not sure what they just picked up.
It’s not softness doing it. It’s the way she walks in like no one here gets to push her around, and men like these always feel it before they understand it. I keep my face flat and tap the chair on my right beside me. “Sit.”
Her gaze is full of venom, and for a second, I think she might tell me to go to hell in front of all of them.
Then she crosses the room, huffs under her breath, and drops into the seat, making it clear she’s here on her terms. Files open.
Laptops wake. Somebody coughs. Leonid adjusts his glasses and flips to the first tab.
She opens her notebook without a word, flips to a clean page, and uncaps the pen.
The wall screen comes alive. A secure window opens, then another. One name flashes and disappears. Trieste relay. Milan. A routed connection through men who like clean suits and dirty work. One by one, faces fill the screen.
The older Italian with silver hair and a tan that doesn’t come cheap walks in first. Alessandro Moretti. Old money, old appetite, the kind of man who doesn’t need to raise his voice because men adjust for him.
Beside him is a younger man in a dark suit, good-looking in a managed way, his watch catching the light once as he moves.
Marco Mancini, Moretti’s adviser, his clean pair of hands in rooms where the family wants polish instead of noise.
He handles negotiations, reads pressure fast, and knows how to turn a conversation before other men realize it’s moved.
Moretti inclines his head. “Volkov.”
I hate bringing her into this. I hate it more that she matters enough to be discussed in meetings such as these. I set my stance and make them do it in front of me.
“Moretti,” I say.
The meeting starts with routes, because men like this would rather talk steel, fuel, and signed freight before they touch the human cost sewn through any of it.
A port access problem in Trieste. Customs pressure on an eastern line.
Through the meeting, her pen keeps moving, furiously taking notes.
Good. For the first thirty minutes, no one so much as looks at her, a bonded storage mess that exists, according to Leonid’s flat explanation, only because certain legacy structures were built to survive a missing principal.
That is her without anybody saying her name.
Beside me, Elena’s fingers close once over the edge of her notebook before she makes them let go.
Mancini folds his hands and says, “The standing issue remains unresolved.”
“It doesn’t,” I say.
His mouth shifts, polite as ever. “From your side, maybe.”
My hand rests near Elena’s on the table, still and open. “From every side that counts.”
Mancini smiles faintly. He has the kind of face people might call beautiful from a distance, but up close there’s something lean and bloodless in it. “With respect,” he says, “the listed status hasn’t been publicly regularized.”
Elena’s pen stops moving. Then she sets it down with care that tells me she’s hearing every word and hates each one.