Page 7 of Bratva Baby

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.”