13. Aleksandr #2
Brute force—bullets, beatings, broken bones—is what amateurs reach for when they lack imagination.
Violence leaves bodies behind like breadcrumbs and invites headlines, investigations, and unwanted scrutiny in places we don’t need.
Any fool with a temper can spill blood. It takes someone with far more discipline to ruin a man without ever touching him directly.
True power lives in society’s perception of their leaders in power. In the narrative people believe before they ever think to question who wrote them in the first place. With her wanting to strip Ramil of any social influence, that is the avenue we will take to do so.
A bad reputation will end a general’s decades-long legacy without fail every time.
No bloodshed required.
Every offshore account and shell company he’s used within the last sixteen years to hide his debts from the public eye are found and laid bare in neat, damning rows across my desk.
Every casino he’s ever visited, every reckless gamble paid for with taxpayer money, every suspicious loss and improbable gain is charted meticulously into a dossier.
His net worth rising and crashing like a dying heartbeat becomes the blueprint for his downfall.
“So, that’s it, then.” Katerina murmurs, sliding the final page of documents into its designated place. She leans back, lifting her hands to knead the tension at the base of her neck, rolling it a few times until her joints crack softly in the quiet.
Outside my office windows, the dark sky has begun its slow surrender into a muted grey.
Dawn flickers faintly on the horizon. We’ve been working so long that time feels abstract now, measured only by how faint the embers in the fire have burned down and the additional dark circles carved beneath our eyes.
“It seems we have everything we need,” I confirm, scanning the organized piles spread across the table.
“Now we decide exactly what will be presented to the public. It must be kept to the point. The average attention span is short. If we are going to destroy him, the information has to be airtight and unforgettable.”
She nods, reaching out to nudge one slightly skewed stack back into alignment.
Her desire for order is a quiet contrast to the chaos she’s been navigating these past few days.
“I’ll dig into the upcoming events he’s supposed to be attending.
If we’re going to do this on a public stage, it should be at something high-profile.
Somewhere his colleagues and an audience will be.
I know he’ll try to spin the narrative in his favor if we do this behind closed doors. ”
A smirk pulls at the corners of my mouth.
She’s learned well from our tutoring sessions.
Not just the tactics or the mechanics of getting everything just right, but the theater that comes with exposing an enemy in general.
Exposure means nothing unless it shatters the illusion of the subject in front of the right audience who will continue to hold them accountable and refuse to allow them back into the position they once held long after the accuser is gone.
What has surprised me most during this entire process has not only been her intelligence, though that alone exceeds what I expected tenfold.
It’s her ability to see the broader map in front of her and leap ahead to the next move before I’ve even finished explaining the current one.
It is a skill that is without a doubt pure, natural talent.
She connects dots I haven’t yet drawn myself, sees the invisible threads between people, politics, and the public’s general perception with an ease that feels inherited.
Proposing strategies that reveal angles I hadn’t even considered until that same moment has stunned me on more than one occasion.
Her ability to find weak points with sheer instinct is frightening at times.
If she had come to me under different circumstances, I would have pulled her into my inner circle without a second thought. Cultivating a mind like that with its razor-sharp intuition would have shaped her into a formidable weapon.
It’s a shame her father was too caught up in his own mess to see that.
I push to my feet without a word and grab the empty glass next to her.
I cross the room to the wet bar, the soft thud of my boots on the hardwood the only sound in the room besides the low crackle of the fire.
I fill the tumbler with ice first, two large cubes clink softly against the bottom, then pour cold water from a bottle stored inside the mini fridge.
When I return the bottled water to the fridge, she clears her throat. “I never did ask… How did you and my father first get in contact?”
Ah, there it is.
The million-dollar question.
I retrieve a fresh tumbler from the shelf and pour myself two fingers of the Macallan. The amber liquid catches the lamplight as it hits the bottom of the glass, swirling like molten gold before settling.
I’ve barely slept since this all started, three hours at most on a given day. I don’t delude myself into thinking the whiskey is keeping the exhaustion at bay but I don’t particularly care. My body can collapse later once this is done.
In the last twenty-four hours, I’ve had one proper meal. Maybe two if I count the protein bar I chewed through while standing over my tablet reviewing encrypted transcripts from an offshore bank’s data center.
When I return to the couch with our drinks, she holds out her hand wordlessly.
I place the glass carefully into her palm, releasing it only when her grip tightens around it.
She lifts it to her mouth and downs nearly all of it in three long swallows.
A harsh exhale escapes her once she lowers the rim.
I make a mental note to tell the kitchen staff to bring another few bottles with her breakfast. She forgets to hydrate when she’s focused. A habit I’ve only now started to notice with how often we’ve been in close quarters. If left unattended, I know she’ll run herself straight into the ground.
I settle back into the couch opposite her, letting my shoulders sink back into the leather. The cushion dips under my weight, the firelight casting a warm bubble over us. The tumbler of whiskey rests loosely in my right hand, the glass cool against my skin.
“It’s a long story,” I finally say.
She lets out an irritated huff at my answer. “Can we skip the part where we have our little back-and-forth that feels like I’m pulling teeth out of you? Just tell me the damn story.”
I bark out a laugh before I can stop myself.
God, she always manages to surprise me at the exact moment I least expect. That mouth of hers is going to get her into trouble one day, yet somehow I already know I’ll be the one dragging her out of it.
“Why do you want to know so badly?” I ask. “It doesn’t change anything.”
She lowers her gaze to her drink, cradling the tumbler with both hands. Her thumbs trace slow circles over the etched crystal, the motion unconscious and telling.
“I barely know what you do,” she says quietly.
I bring the tumbler to my lips. “I would wager it’s quite obvious what I do, Katya.”
The whiskey burns in a satisfying line down my throat.
She rolls her eyes at me over the rim of her glass. The gesture is so quintessentially her that something tightens in my chest, a pull I’m not used to feeling.
She hesitates, searching for the right words.
“I know about the crime stuff. The illegal product you move across borders. I’ve overheard the meetings and calls.
But… I guess I don’t understand why you’d play part-time loan shark on the side?
From what I’ve observed, you’ve been profitable moving illegal product across borders.
You don’t exactly strike me as the type to have a loan business as a hobby. ”
Fair assessment.
And not wrong, either.
I settle the glass back into my lap.
Perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised she wants to know more about the things I do.
Being locked away in this office with only each other to talk to has shaped a kind of temporary co-dependence between us.
One that never would’ve existed under normal circumstances.
Stripped of outside distractions, we’ve learned each other in ways neither of us intended.
I already know plenty about who Katerina Borchin is. It’s only natural she’d want the same courtesy extended.
My fingers tap lightly against the tumbler as I consider how much to tell her and then dismiss the thought. She’s earned honesty.
More than that, she’s earned my respect.
“I’ve been head of this Bratva since my uncle’s passing a little under a decade ago.
I inherited his trade contracts after he died with almost no disruption.
Guns, pharmaceuticals, rare gems when the market was right.
” I shrug. “The routes were already established long before I came along. Taking them over has been easy.”
“Easy” is relative, of course. But compared to everything that followed, it’s accurate.
Most clients had remained deeply loyal to my family after the hierarchy change.
Continuing to grow the business I’d been surrounded by since birth had been simple enough.
There were only a few stumbles along the way—long-term partners who began to test my patience who thought a new Pakhan meant new opportunities to renegotiate terms.
They learned quite quickly my policies on handling insubordination.
She nods slowly, absorbing every word like she’s taking mental notes. “So, you were the next in line? Your uncle didn’t have any kids of his own?”
I take another sip. “I’m the only boy.”
The corner of her eye twitches, just slightly, but I catch it. A full blown smirk breaks across my mouth
“What, you thought criminal enterprises were immune to a patriarchal system?” I drawl.
She grumbles something under her breath, the irritation unmissable. Then she continues, “That doesn’t answer my question about how you got involved with my father.”