Chapter 28
Maksim
The casino office reeks of reheated coffee and stale cigarettes when I walk in to meet with the Circle.
My mood is foul after tossing and turning all night in a cold, empty bed.
Everyone in the room notices, but no one dares say a word.
One of the things I appreciate most about the Circle is their ability to read me and know exactly how short my fuse is.
Today: it's nonexistent.
“Talk,” I order Yelena, seated on one of the sofas.
“Good morning to you too, Maks.” She studies me for a second, one eyebrow lifting a fraction at my stony face, but she's smart enough not to comment. She opens the folder unhurriedly and spreads the papers across the table. “Demidov is coming out of his hole.”
I straighten in my chair.
“I'm listening.”
“Next weekend. He'll be at a dacha[25] forty minutes from Moscow, registered in a front man's name, but he bought it about six years ago.
He'll be there Friday through Sunday.” She slides a photo across the table toward me.
It shows the entire perimeter of the property.
“Just him and his mistress. Outside his safe zone, far from the infrastructure and heavy security of the city. It's a clean shot.”
I feel the first flicker of real satisfaction in days. For weeks we've been hitting nothing but dead ends, this son of a bitch slipping through my fingers like an eel every time I get too close. And now, finally, he's made the mistake of breathing somewhere I can reach him.
“How did you get this?” I ask, spinning the photo between my fingers.
“I have my methods.” She shrugs and leaves it at that.
Yelena has a network of informants so vast and varied that even I don't know the full extent of it. When everyone said there was no place for women in the Bratva, she used that to prove them wrong. She became the woman who could get into places men never could, getting information no one else can.
“The window is short,” she continues. “We have to move this weekend, or he'll go back to hiding in Moscow like a rat.”
“Yuri.”
When I call his name, he's already swiping across a tablet screen. He pushes back the hood of his sweatshirt, revealing the messy hair of someone who also didn't sleep well, pops a gummy bear in his mouth, and hands me the device. A satellite map of the property appears.
“Isolated dacha, surrounded by woods on three sides.
Single access road from the front, which is good and bad.
Good, because there's only one approach to watch.
Bad, because if things go south, there's also only one way out.” He zooms in on the building.
“Demidov's security isn't heavy, just a few men.
Cameras at both gates and on the facade.
But there's a blind spot on the east wing, here.” He points to a corner on the screen.
“You can get in there without showing up on any camera.”
“How long do you need to take down the cameras?”
“From the moment I have access to the local network? Seconds.” He shrugs. “The problem isn't the cameras, it's the generator. If he has an independent backup, I need to know where the backup power is before I kill everything. Otherwise, the network and cameras come back online in thirty seconds.”
“Igor confirms the generator on entry,” I say. “Before anything else.”
Leaning against the back wall, Igor nods once, acknowledging the order.
Vladimir leans over the map, arms crossed, his face impassive as always. When he speaks, it's slow and analytical.
“Three exit routes.” He points with two fingers, touching each one.
“Front road, service trail through the back, and the river to the east, which should be frozen solid this time of year. If they close off the front, we can get out across the ice.” He pauses, long enough to get under my skin.
“But no one's pointing out the biggest problem.”
The room goes quiet.
“Someone on the inside is feeding us this information.” Vladimir lifts his gaze to Yelena, without hostility, just stating a fact. “Demidov has never let anything leak by accident. Someone close to him opened their mouth. Do you trust this informant? How do we know it's not an ambush?”
The air grows heavy. The question is fair, and that's exactly why he's been my counselor since I rose to power. Vladimir asks the questions my explosive temper would never let me ask.
Yelena doesn't blink.
“The informant doesn't know we're behind this.
He thinks he's selling information to someone who wants to rob Demidov, not kill him.
The Bratva Nikiforov doesn't even cross his mind.” She holds Vladimir's gaze without wavering.
“I don't work with bait, Moscovich. I only use people who don't even know they're serving me.”
Silence settles over the room, and then, very slowly, the corner of Vladimir's mouth twitches upward. It's the closest thing to a smile he'll give today.
“You learned well, girl.”
“It's been a while.”
I leave the two of them to it and scan the rest of the room. Igor is still leaning against the back wall, quiet as always, his gaze sweeping over each paper on the table without so much as a twitch. He’s calculating every strategic vantage point for a long-range attack.
Yuri’s back at his laptop in the armchair to the left, fingers flying over the keys.
“All right.” I pull everyone’s attention back to me.
“Friday night. We go in through the blind spot. Igor takes point with two men. Yuri takes down the entire network remotely. Yelena holds the perimeter, coordinating.” I tap my finger on the photo, right on top of the dacha.
“And I take Demidov alive. He’s coming out with me, and then I’ll deal with him personally. ”
“Pakhan, you shouldn’t be there,” Vladimir begins.
“I’m going.”
“Maksim, you can’t handle this so person…”
“I’m going.”
I shut it down and no one questions further. That’s how it works. Everyone knows their place here. And mine, this time, is to get the man who hurt my wife long before she was ever mine.
“What if Orlov finds out?” Igor asks.
The name lands like a stone. The implication is clear. Entering Moscow, attacking and kidnapping a brigadier is a declaration of war. Whatever tenuous truce existed between St. Petersburg and Moscow, it’s about to end.
“Orlov won’t know,” I respond firmly. “Because no one in this room is going to open their mouth. This is the cleanest operation we’ve ever planned, and it’s going to stay that way. Get everything ready for Friday. If anything changes in his schedule, I want to know.”
The Circle nods in agreement, and soon everyone starts filing out. One by one. Leaving only me, my shitty mood, and the hellish headache that comes just from thinking about going home to an empty bedroom.
I find Olga in the kitchen the moment I walk in, looking for anything to eat before I shut myself in the office with a bottle of vodka to lick my wounds. She glances at me over her shoulder, sizes me up with those small, fierce eyes, and turns back to the pot without rushing.
“Sir.”
That alone is reproach enough. When Olga calls me “sir” instead of “Maksimka,” it’s because she’s clearly disappointed and wants me to know it.
“Olga.”
She sets aside what she’s doing, goes to the cupboard, and gets a mug. Fills it with black coffee the way I take it—no milk, no sugar—and slides it across the counter toward me. She doesn’t say anything, just lets me take a few sips in silence until the caffeine kicks in.
“Fight?”
I think about denying it, but there’s no point. This house sometimes feels more hers than mine, and that means Olga knows everything that happens here.
“Yeah.”
She nods slowly, confirming what she already knew. Svetlana slept in the guest room and no doubt had breakfast here in the kitchen before leaving. Olga knows everything, even if Anya didn’t say a word.
“She’s stubborn.” I don’t even know why I’m explaining myself to my housekeeper like I’m eight years old again and just broke something. “She wants to get involved in something that’s too dangerous for her. This world isn’t a place for her, and I’m just trying to…”
“Protect her,” Olga finishes for me.
“Exactly.”
She nods slowly without lifting her eyes from the pot.
“Your father used to say that too, you know?”
The blow lands dead center, and it’s so accurate because Olga knew exactly where to aim. I set the mug down on the counter harder than I meant to, coffee nearly splashing onto my fingers.
“Don’t compare me to him.”
“Then don’t give me reason to.” She finally turns, facing me with the eyes that have watched over me my entire life.
The same ones that saw me become who I became and never gave up on me.
“Your father locked away everything he claimed to love. Your mother, you, and any hint of happiness in the air—until it suffocated. You’re repeating what you learned when you didn’t even know how to tie your shoes.
You’re not like that, Maksim, and your wife isn’t someone to keep locked in a safe. ”
I stay quiet. I don’t know if Anya told her everything. No. Actually, I do know. Svetlana wouldn’t do that—my wife is too reserved and too proud to admit our problems the very next day. Our shouting must have been louder than I thought.
“I raised you better than that,” Olga continues, her voice softer now.
Beneath this scolding is the quiet, maternal affection I’ve only ever known through her.
“You chose to marry her. No one forced you—not on your side. So now be a real husband. Don’t hide things, especially the big, ugly ones.
Marriages that last are the ones where the weight is shared, not piled up. ”
I drink the rest of the coffee in silence, letting her words sink in.
Marriages that last are the ones where the weight is shared, not piled up.
Yesterday, when I finally accepted that I'm in love with my wife, I came face to face with the cruel truth that our unusual beginning might lead to our end. I bought a woman expecting nothing but usefulness and gained the chance to experience something I never imagined I could: happiness.
It's foolish, reckless, and insane to include Anya in the operation. She has no training, she doesn't belong to this world, and she'd be an easy target. That's out of the question, and it's staying out of the question. I won't put my wife in the line of fire even if the world is ending.
But I'll tell her the rest. Svetlana has the right to know, and she was right to fight for it. And the hard-to-swallow truth is that I want to share the weight with her. For the first time in my life, I want to feel like I'm not on the verge of exploding from carrying too heavy a burden.
I look at Olga, who's already back at the pot, doing a terrible job of pretending she's not waiting for my answer.
“I'll talk to her today. Tonight, when I get back.”
Olga doesn't smile. But her shoulders relax just a fraction under her dress, and from her, that's practically a leap for joy.
“Eat first.” She sets a plate of bread and pastries in front of me. “Nobody makes peace on an empty stomach.”