Page 119 of Bratva Brother’s Bride

The words land. I see them land. For the first time since we walked in, my father’s composure cracks. Not much, just a small twitch beside his mouth. But it’s enough.

Pavel opens the final pages of the ledger, and his face changes.

“What is it?” another elder asks.

Pavel doesn’t answer. He turns the book so they can see. “The elimination of Roman Volkonsky.”

The room erupts. This time Vera doesn’t have to explain a thing. They can see it for themselves, in Dmitri’s own hand, Anton’s initials scrawled beside a conspiracy that stretches back years. And beside one of the final entries, the two words that end him.

K informed.

Konstantin pushes back from the table. “This is absurd.”

Pavel looks up. “Is it?”

“I will not sit here and be judged by men who owe everything they have to me.”

“That,” Pavel says, “is exactly why you will.”

Konstantin’s expression goes flat, and the room shifts around him. I feel it happen. Men who wouldn’t meet his eyes minutes ago are staring straight at him now. One elder quietly closes the financial file. Another draws his chair back from Konstantin’s end of the table, an inch, no more. Small movements. My father catches every one.

He looks around the room slowly, at Pavel, at the ledger, at me, and last of all at Vera. And for the first time in my life, Konstantin Volkonsky looks like a man who can bleed. Not weak. He has never been weak, not for a single second of his life. But mortal. Cornered. The old wolf who has finally felt the pack turn, and knows, before any of them, how this ends.

“The evidence needs to be authenticated,” one elder says.

“Agreed,” another replies. “Every account. Every signature.”

Konstantin’s gaze snaps toward him. Good. Let it hurt. They aren’t condemning him yet.

Pavel nods. “Until that review is complete, Konstantin should relinquish operational authority.”

“No.” The word cuts through the room.

Pavel looks at him. “Konstantin⁠—”

“I said no. You do not strip me of anything. I built this family.”

“You compromised it,” Pavel replies. “If these records are legitimate⁠—”

“They aren’t.”

“And if they are?”

Konstantin’s nostrils flare, but no answer comes.

Pavel looks toward me. “Until the evidence is reviewed, Roman retains control of Dmitri’s territory. Konstantin’s authority will be suspended.”

There it is. Not death, not imprisonment, but humiliation. My father has lost the one thing he valued more than either of his sons: control.

He looks at me. “You think you’ve won.”

I force myself upright despite the pain. “No.”

His brow furrows. “Then what?”

“I think I’m done.”

Something flashes in his eyes. “Done?”