2. Sofiya
SOFIYA
Maks closes the door softly behind him. The thud sounds loud in my father’s office, where he taught me how to stay ahead of risk. Now the door is shut, and the risk is inside with me.
The terminal light washes the desk in pale blue. My bracelet sits beside the keyboard.
The drive is tucked inside my sleeve, pressed flat against my skin, and my pulse is beating so hard I’m half afraid he can see it through the silk at my wrist.
Maks takes two steps into the room and glances at the screen before looking at me.
His mouth curves, but his eyes don’t move, holding me in place the way a hand closes around a throat.
“Sofiya,” he murmurs with a light laugh, like we’re two friends sitting down to tea. “What the hell are you doing?”
I turn my chair slowly and will myself to settle every muscle in my face. “Why are you sneaking up on women in dark offices at family parties?”
His mouth twitches, but it isn’t amusement. “I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
He moves forward unhurriedly, with his jacket folded over one arm. He’s careful to keep his posture loose.
The thing about Maks is that he lets his enemies feel comfortable before slicing their throats. He lets them think they have space until they realize the moment is already gone.
I let him move so he can show me his hand. He doesn’t have proof that I was up to anything yet.
He stops across from the desk, drops his jacket over the back of one of the guest chairs, and looks at the monitor again.
I closed the obvious files, but a reconciliation sheet still sits open on the left side of the screen, and one of the route references is still visible.
He tips his head slightly, pale green eyes fixed hawkishly on mine, one hand resting on the back of the chair.
“Let me ask differently,” he says softly. “Why did you reopen container references tied to Baltic transit, and why were you in a payment chain that should’ve stayed buried in freight reconciliation?”
Cold slides through me so fast, it leaves me lightheaded for a second. I let the beat pass and force my mind into analysis. He knows, which means the burial chains have been flagged.
The second I touched something wrong, something’s gone live on his end.
He knows firsthand that I was in those files. The Baltic routes and buried payment chains sit behind layers outside ordinary access. Getting into those files leaves a trail.
Sometimes it’s a log. Sometimes it’s a quiet flag. It lands directly with the man who built the path.
He knows the sequence well enough to understand exactly where I went and what I was close to finding.
I look fully at Maks. His light brown hair is brushed back, and that handsome face of his carries the small, easy smile that makes people trust him too fast. He photographs beautifully. Society women lean in closer. Politicians want him in the frame.
Men like Maks make people feel chosen when they’re really being sized up.
I cup my chin in the palm of my right hand and cross one leg over the other, keeping my sleeve turned in.
I angle my body like I’m irritated more than alarmed, clear my throat, and say, “I saw irregular declarations. I checked them. That’s called doing my job.”
Maks makes a sound somewhere between a laugh and contempt. “You almost had me there, Sis.” His eyes move to my Grandfather’s old Yantar clock on the wall, dark wood, pendulum still moving. It ticks toward ten obediently.
His voice goes smooth as cream. “Your job,” he repeats softly. “This late, while there’s a party going on in the house. In archive files tied to a series that was already administratively closed.”
I let one shoulder lift and keep my chin propped in my palm. “Security changed position. One of Grigor’s senior men got called away. Then you left the bar and followed the same path.
“Something in freight had clearly broken open, and no one in that ballroom was going to say it plainly, so I came down here and checked the records myself.”
He tips his head. “And here I was thinking you came down to admire Father’s filing system.”
I hold his gaze. “Don’t flatter yourself. If I came looking for rot, there was a reason.”
Maks’s mouth curves. He slides a glance at the screen, then back to me. “So noble. A private little act of service.”
I uncross and recross my legs slowly, keeping that sleeve still. “You say that like I need permission to use the import office.”
“You don’t,” he agrees. “You usually have better timing.”
I give him a thin smile. “And you usually hide things better.”
He studies me for a beat. His eyes are green, lighter than mine, pale enough to look almost elegant. Charming on the surface, hollow when they’re held too long. Then he huffs a laugh and looks at me like he thinks I'm interesting. “Careful, Sofiya.”
I hold his gaze. “Why? Am I close to doing actual import work?”
He backs up and pulls out a chair, lowering himself across from me, away from the screen. He doesn’t need to see it. “You always were your father’s daughter.” He laughs.
Coming from him, it hurts. In this family, grief becomes leverage. I lean back in my chair and place both hands flat on the desk. “You say that like it’s an insult.”
“That depends on which of his traits you inherited.” Maks wears that small, unpleasant smile that makes me sick to my stomach.
The old clock in the corner starts striking—one deep note, then another. The sound pins my thoughts into neat order.
This isn’t ordinary smuggling.
If it were, I’d be looking at a side theft, a few dirty invoices, or a hidden payment path. Product slipping sideways before it hits the main books.
This is bigger.
Maks built a hidden channel through Baltic and Finnish freight lines, and he’s using it to move cargo and money outside the official Leonidov system.
It’s neat, buried deep, and dressed up to look boring, which means nobody was supposed to notice it unless they already knew where to push.
The real danger is that he didn’t just hide money.
He tied the structure to the old intermediary case that helped poison everything between Leonidov and Reznikov years ago. That history is supposed to be dead, but he built it into this operation anyway.
A neutral middleman died before the matter could be settled, both houses blamed the other, and the truce that followed never cleaned the wound.
Maks built part of this operation on top of that same old fault line.
So Maks is running after pressure and leverage. My head starts pounding as I keep my gaze fixed on him. He’s watching me, checking my expressions for a tell.
If this breaks open, it’ll drag old blood back to the surface, make Grigor look weak, and throw both houses into fresh disorder.
I let out a small breath and swivel back toward the monitor. “If this is about my intentions in my father’s office, save it. He trained me for this business. I don’t need to explain why I take it seriously.”
“Do you remember what your father used to say?” he asks.
I don’t answer. Maks does it for me. “Numbers only become dangerous when the wrong person starts asking what they mean.”
He’s quoting him almost perfectly, I’ll give him that.
I force my face to stay still. “He also said numbers become dangerous when people start killing to protect them.”
His eyes narrow to slits. A vein throbs in his temple. “Careful.”
“With what?”
“With how much intelligence you claim to have.”
I laugh. “Claim?”
“Yes,” he says. “There’s a difference between being useful and being informed, Sofiya, and sometimes, women raised in rooms like this often mistake family for permission.”
I keep my voice even. “Then stop speaking to me as if I’m stupid.”
He snorts. “No. I think you forgot the difference between inquiry and nosiness.”
I glance at the monitor. “A route that goes bad usually smells before it breaks.”
He comes around the desk and stops beside me, eyes on the screen. “Go on, Sofiya. Tell me what you think you found.”
I move away from the desk toward the wall where an old family photograph hangs in a silver frame. I’m barely two in it, round-cheeked and solemn in white. Maks stands beside his father, all teeth and polish even then. I stop there for a beat, then circle back and keep the desk between us.
“I found irregular movement through a closed series,” I say, resting my fingertips on the edge. “A payment structure that didn’t reconcile cleanly. I checked whether somebody was skimming.”
“Somebody,” Maks repeats. He reaches for the decanter and pours himself two fingers of whiskey.
I watch the amber liquid settle in the cut glass.
“You want names?”
“I want to know how much of my dead uncle’s habits got passed on before he died.”
Something in me goes cold, but I don’t let it reach my face. If Maks wants fear, he can work harder for it.
He pushes off the cabinet and comes back toward the desk, whiskey glass in hand. “The men who built this house did things softer men would’ve called unforgivable. They took what they needed and paid what it cost. Peace only mattered when it made the family stronger.”
A cold hand closes around my heart. Conviction in a man like Maks is worse than greed. I keep still and wait.
“Say something.” Maks strikes the desk with the flat of his hand.
I stare at him. “And you think Grigor forgot that?”
“I think Grigor got comfortable.”
He sets the glass beside my bracelet. “He mistakes stability for power, clean business for control. Absence of open blood for victory.”
I shake my head. Maybe I’ll be able to talk some sense into this asshole. “Maks, you’re trying to reopen the Reznikov feud. Nothing good can come of this!”
His eyes go narrow. “I’m saying the truce weakened us.”
My brows knit together as I try to make him see reason. “The truce kept the ports from turning into a graveyard.”
“The truce turned this family into accountants.”
“We are accountants,” I snap. “That’s what keeps the dirt buried.”
His mouth shifts. “Paper only matters if men are still willing to enforce it.”
“Maks.” My shoulders slump. “This isn’t about profit. You have to see that, right?”
He says nothing. “You’re doing this on purpose,” I mutter, almost to myself. “You’re building pressure.”
“Pressure reveals who matters.”
“And who dies?”
He takes a sip. “Sometimes.”
Then he comes around the desk and stops close enough that I can smell the whiskey. “Did you copy anything?”
“No.”
His eyes drop, just once, to my sleeve. My whole body goes still, but he never touches me or calls for a female guard to search me. He just looks at me for a long moment and lets the silence sit there until my skin feels too thin. Then he steps back.
He slides into his jacket, eyes still on me. “If you found anything, the smart choice would be to forget it.”
I bristle immediately. “I don’t take advice from men burying freight money in dead case files.”
His face sharpens. “Stubborn as always. You push at the wrong moment.”
“I push when no one else will.”
“And look where that got your father.” He comes close enough to wake the monitor with two fingers against the keyboard. “Sometimes, people mistake access for safety,” he says. “Did you inherit all of his habits? Including the fatal one of thinking knowledge makes a person valuable?”
My pulse pounds, but my mind is already working. Door. Camera. Distance. The drive hidden in my sleeve.
At last he steps aside. “Go back to the party.”
I have no misconceptions about this.
He’s letting me walk because killing me here would be messy, and because he still doesn’t know what I copied or who I told. He’s chosen surveillance over force.
I smooth my dress, rebuild my face, and go back to the party. No one stops me. The quartet still plays.
My aunt gives me a quick look and I answer it with a smile. Anton is gone. Maks comes back later, and anyone watching would think nothing happened.
I stay long enough not to look frightened, then leave. In the car, I check my sleeve. The drive is still there.
By the time I get home, I understand that Maks let me walk because I’m being watched.
My apartment is on the fourth floor of a building that the family still controls through one of its outer companies. I used to resent that arrangement.
The apartment was mine to live in, but the control over it still belonged to the family. I had space, privacy, and a front door of my own, yet the reach of Leonidov money was still built into the walls.
Tonight, I’m grateful for it. Then the thought turns sour, because protection tied to family money only holds as long as the family still wants me protected.
Once I get inside, I kick my shoes off and lock the door, cross straight to the kitchen, and pull the drive from my sleeve.
I stand under the pendant light in my formal dress and bare feet and stare at it.
What now? Call someone? Who?
There is no one obvious. That’s the first ugly truth. The people who used to belong to my father belong to the structure now, or to Grigor. Men I once trusted drive Leonidov cars. Women who hugged me at the funeral attend dinners where Maks sits closer to the head of the table every month.
I think of Grigor, then I think better of it. If my uncle already knows, I hand him leverage.
If he doesn’t and I accuse Maks without enough proof to force action, I become a problem inside the family.
I go to my bedroom, change out of silk and diamonds, wipe my face clean, and pull on a black sweater and soft grey lounge pants. I tie my hair back and sit at my dining table with my laptop, the drive, and a notebook. I write down what I know from memory.
By eleven thirty, I’ve made two lists. One is what I know. The other is what I need before I can move. I stand, restless, and walk to the window.
My building overlooks a quieter street just off the main avenue. At this hour, the road lies mostly empty under the streetlamps, with the occasional car passing slowly.
I fold my arms and stare out, trying to think ahead. There’s still a chance I can get in front of this. There’s still a chance Maks only meant to frighten me.
The thought hardly stays before I strip it down for what it is—a lie I’m telling myself. Maks doesn’t leave loose ends.
A dark sedan turns onto my street and slows.
Every muscle in my body locks. Then the car eases to the curb across from my building and settles there under the streetlamp.
I peer into the night. I know that car. It has the same make, color, and Leonidov plate bracket with the tiny scratch near the left side.
I’ve seen it outside warehouses, family houses, and once at the cemetery after my father’s burial, when two enforcement men stood beside it pretending to be mourners.
The driver doesn’t get out. Neither does the man in the passenger seat. They just sit there watching. My mouth goes dry so fast it hurts. Near midnight, and now I have my answer.
Maks sent them to watch me, to learn my next step, but that’s not what turns my blood cold. The worst of it is simpler than that.
When the timing works for him and it can be done without noise, he’s going to have me killed.