Chapter 18
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CAMILLA
As soon as Dmitri turns the screen in Maksim's direction, I stiffen, a silent exhale gusting out of my lips.
Maksim immediately turns his heavy gaze to me, but I don’t look up at him.
I keep my eyes glued to the glowing device in Dmitri 's hand, studying the lines and the timestamps. My pulse quickens. Looking at those coordinates, a wave of absolute confidence washes over me. I know exactly what I’m looking at.
"Look at the tertiary drop point," I say, my voice steady, carrying a quiet authority that makes both men pause.
They frown at me, but I ignore them and step closer, pointing a finger directly at the map on the screen.
"Your men are looking for a modern leak, but they're missing the history.
This isn't a new strategy. It's a ghost route. "
Maksim narrows his eyes, his massive frame shifting as he focuses intensely on me. His expression is unreadable, his jaw tight. "What are you talking about, Camilla?"
"This exact route was engineered by my father, Massimo, years ago," I explain, tracing the path with my eyes.
"He used it for high-value contraband before the city reconstructed the outer bypass.
He eventually abandoned it because it became too high-risk for heavy freight, but the security blind spots remained the same.
Massimo still owns the old blueprints. He didn't have to steal your current files to give Viktor what he wanted—he just handed him old Caruso intelligence. He’s feeding Viktor the past to create problems for you, all while pretending to honor your alliance. "
Maksim doesn't look angry yet; instead, a dangerous curiosity flashes in his gray-blue eyes. He steps fully into my space, his shadow completely cutting off the light from the gym.
"How do you know these routes, Camilla?" he asks, his voice dropping into a low, interrogative rumble. "Massimo doesn't respect his daughters enough to give them a seat at the table, let alone trust them with family trade secrets."
A dark, humorless laugh escapes my lips, the sound echoing sharply against the concrete walls.
"He didn't tell me anything," I say, looking straight into his eyes.
"My father is a creature of habit. He always keeps physical paper trails and old ledgers locked away in the safe in his study.
He thinks we were just silly girls, completely harmless, so he has always been careless.
Whenever he left the estate, my sister Sienna and I would sneak in there.
We made a game out of cracking his codes and reading everything we could find. "
I look back at the screen, the memories of those dusty, hidden pages vivid in my mind. "Since this was one of the major routes my father used to build his empire at one time, the blueprints were stamped everywhere. I remember the exact coordinates. I know what I'm saying, Maksim."
Maksim stands perfectly still, a dark, murderous expression washing over his harsh features as the reality of my words settles in. The betrayal from my father is subtle, calculated, and entirely characteristic.
"You're giving up your own blood very easily, princess," Maksim murmurs, testing me.
"My father sold me in an auction," I counter flatly, my chest rising and falling heavily. "I owe zero loyalty to a man who treated me like property.”
Maksim stares at me for a long, silent moment. The intense weight of his gaze presses down on me, tracking the defiance in my eyes before he finally tears his look away. He turns to Dmitri, his posture stiffening back into the cold command of the Pakhan.
"When is the dinner?" Maksim asks, his voice cutting through the lingering tension.
"Nine tonight," Dmitri responds immediately.
My brows draw together as I look between the two of them. "What dinner?"
Maksim doesn't look back at me, his focus remaining entirely on his lieutenant. "There’s a Bratva dinner happening tonight. A gathering of the families."
"Why didn’t you tell me earlier?" I ask, a sharp spike of irritation breaking through my voice. We were literally just in bed together, and he's keeping massive political gatherings a secret?
Maksim finally snaps his head toward me, a hard, warning glare in his gray-blue eyes. "Camilla, not now. Behave yourself."
I scoff, but he is already turning back to Dmitri, dismissing my attitude. "Organize a strategy meeting for two p.m.," Maksim orders, his tone leaving no room for argument. "I need to talk to everyone. The inner council, the captains—everyone. This sabotage has to stop."
Dmitri nods, taking a breath to respond. "Understood. I’ll make the calls—"
"I want to attend the meeting," I cut in, my voice ringing out clearly across the gym floor.
Dmitri freezes, his eyes widening slightly as he looks at me like I’ve lost my mind.
Maksim's jaw clenches so hard a muscle violently ticks. He steps fully into my space, his massive frame towering over me, radiating pure fury. "No. Absolutely not. This is a war council. This is not your world to command."
I don't back down. I step closer until my chest is practically brushing his sweat-dampened shirt, staring right into the storm brewing in his eyes.
"I was sold into this alliance because of my blood and my father's weapons network," I remind him, my voice dripping with unyielding confidence.
"My name is tied to this treaty now, Maksim.
If men are out there using my name to burn down your warehouses and start a war, I am going to be in that room.
I will know exactly what they are doing with it. "
A heavy, suffocating silence falls over the basement.
Maksim glares down at me, his breath hot against my face.
He is furious that I am challenging his authority in front of his right-hand man, but beneath the anger, I see a sudden, dark spark of impression flash in his eyes.
He likes the fire. He likes that I refuse to bend.
He lets out a low, rough exhale, his eyes never leaving mine. "Two o'clock," he growls softly. "If you open your mouth once without my permission, I will have Dmitri drag you out. Do you understand?"
"Crystal clear," I say, a faint, victorious smirk touching my lips.
Beside us, Dmitri stands completely shocked, staring at his Pakhan in utter disbelief. Never in the history of the Sokolov Bratva has a woman—let alone a captive—been granted a seat at the high table, but I’ll be damned if I let them treat me like a damsel in distress.
By two p.m., I’m walking into the secure strategy room with Maksim.
The room is hidden deep within the mansion's fortified wing, sealed behind a thick, biometric steel door.
Inside, the space is high-tech and sterile, dominated by a massive, backlit glass conference table and wall-to-wall digital screens displaying active surveillance loops, shipping manifests, and city grid maps.
Heavy-set guards stand like statues at the entry points, their hands crossed over their waistbands, weapons concealed but ready.
Seated around the table are the senior captains and inner council members of the syndicate—hardened men with scarred faces and cold eyes that have seen decades of bloodshed.
The second the door slides open and I step in behind Maksim, the room goes dead silent.
Every single gaze shifts to me. I feel the weight of their scrutiny, a heavy mixture of shock, offense, and blatant distrust cutting through the air.
They are traditionalists; to them, a woman in this room is a violation of code.
But they say absolutely nothing. Not a single man dares to question Maksim's judgment openly, though the silent fury in their eyes speaks volumes.
I ignore them entirely, pulling out the heavy leather chair directly to the right of Maksim’s seat and sitting down, my posture rigid, my chin held high.
Maksim takes his place at the head of the table. He doesn't offer a single word of explanation for my presence. Instead, he slams both hands flat onto the glass surface, immediately calling their attention to himself.
"Enough staring," Maksim growls, his voice an absolute command that snaps every head back toward him. "We have a leak, and our infrastructure is burning. Let's get to work."
For the next hour, he briefs them on everything happening—the arson at Warehouse Seven, the hijacked shipment from Chicago, and the calculated precision of the breaches. He pulls up the telemetry data Dmitri generated earlier, throwing the mapping coordinates onto the main wall screens.
Immediately, a frantic back-and-forth of ideas erupts across the table.
"It has to be an internal hack on our local servers," Anatoly, one of the oldest captains, argues, slamming a thick fist down. "Viktor's tech team has been probing our firewall for months. They finally found a blind spot."
"No, the firewall logs are clean," another captain, Ilya, counters, shaking his head. "To bypass the silent nodes without triggering the main mainframe, you need physical proximity. Someone on our payroll at the docks must have handed over the master keys."
"We need to raid every Caruso-aligned warehouse on the west side," Anatoly spits, throwing a dark, pointed glare in my direction. "The timing is too perfect. The Caruso bloodline joins ours, and suddenly our vaults are compromised? It's a setup."
"If we move against the Caruso faction without proof, we trigger a three-way turf war with Viktor laughing in the shadows," Dmitri cuts in, trying to maintain order. "We need to isolate the variable before we start executing captains."
"Excuse my interruption, gentlemen, but the variable isn't at the docks, and it isn't in your firewall," I say, my voice ringing out clearly over the low rumble of the men's arguments.
The entire table goes still. Anatoly, the old captain who had just been glaring at me, scoffs loudly, throwing his hands up in irritation. "We are discussing syndicate security. This is not the place for a—"
“Anatoly…” Maksim cuts him off. “You will not speak to my wife in that tone.”