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Maksim takes the chart from him. “Belov was seen near the surgical floor.”

Arkady Belov comes from old family money and commands loyal crews, which gives ambitious men the confidence to make bad decisions. He’s survived every change inside the Volkov Bratva by knowing when to support the man in power and when to stand aside while another man destroys himself. He’s never challenged Maksim openly, but I’ve never mistaken patience for loyalty. His presence at the hospital makes no sense unless he knew about the attack.

“Who saw him?” I try to shift against the pillows, but the chest tube, IV lines, and catheter keep me pinned.

Maksim gives me the facts. “A camera caught him entering through the east corridor twelve minutes after you arrived. He wore a security jacket and spoke to two of your surviving guards.”

“What reason did he give for being there?”

Maksim’s mouth flattens. “He claims he heard about the shooting and came to help.”

“Arkady Belov has never arrived anywhere to help.”

“We know,” Maksim says.

Maksim puts the chart down. Dmitri says, “One nurse remembers him standing outside the operating suite. Another heard him asking whether you’d regained consciousness.”

“Which guards did he speak to?”

“Yegor and Stepan,” Maksim says. “Yegor was found dead in the parking structure the next morning, and Stepan is missing.”

The sequence is too clean to ignore. Belov learned about the shooting quickly enough to arrive before Maksim, entered through a restricted corridor, wore borrowed security clothing, and spoke to men connected to my protection. Either he ordered the attack or knew who had.

I look at Maksim, and he reads the question before I ask it.

“Morozov gave us two names connected to his courier company, Sable Crown,” he says. “Belov questioned both men at the time. They disappeared afterward.”

“One was later found dead in a railway yard.” Dmitri places both hands on the bed rail.

“Yuri pulled footage from a camera at the yard,” he says. “A Sable Crown delivery truck was there the night the body was found.”

Maksim folds his hands. “Kirill traced the car used in your attack to a shell company tied to New Harbor Medical Aid. Disposable phones were also used near two fake charity offices we closed last month.”

The name is notorious. New Harbor gave Morozov’s business a medical face through false clinics, patient records, supply orders, sedatives, and equipment invoices. Sable Crown moved what New Harbor made look clean.

“Leave Belov blind,” I say. “No questions, no visible watch.”

Pain tightens across my abdomen, and my fingers close around the sheet until it passes.

“Leave his men’s accounts alone.” Each word pulls at my chest.

Maksim turns to Dmitri. “What do we have from the cameras and badge records?”

“Kirill is pulling everything from the entrance to the surgical floor,” Dmitri says. “We’ve already locked the original files.”

“Add staff records and every access to Alexei’s chart,” Maksim says. “I want the name of anyone who followed him into surgery or opened his file afterward.”

“I want all of it as soon as possible,” I say through my teeth as sweat breaks across my brow.

“You’re forgetting something,” Dmitri tells me.

I look at him.

“You’ve been shot, opened twice, and recently dead.”

Dmitri looks concerned, which on him closely resembles preparation for murder, but he takes out his phone.

I turn back to Maksim. “Investigate the surgical team.”