Mikhail Morozov. Fourteen. Mathematics prodigy. I tap his school photo with my thumb—serious eyes, dark hair, no idea what kind of men are using him as a bargaining chip. I make myself stop after two taps. Any more and it turns into something someone could notice.
MX-42 has its own folder. Thick. Dense. Clinical language, chemical diagrams, test reports. One breath and you drop. I’ve seen the test footage. Men in a room going limp in six seconds, like someone cut their strings. One didn’t get up.
Good money in something like that.
If it behaved.
Stability is the problem. Instead of a quick fade to black, you get bodies on the floor with foam at their mouths and lungs tearing themselves apart. Six Chechens died that way last month when a batch spoiled in transit. Three of ours. One chemist tore his own eyes out after the hallucinations started. Screamed about things that weren’t there until his voice broke.
I watched that video once. Once was enough.
Vadim needs someone to fix it. Make it travel. Make it sit safely on a shelf until someone decides who dies. Her thesis title sits halfway down the page:Stabilization Mechanisms in Synthetic Opioid Derivatives.
Perfect. It might just sayplease ruin my life.
She’s not really coming here because her father lost eight million euros in Monaco to the Bratva—that’s the story we’ll tell everyone else. The truth is simple: Mishka lives if she signs. Mishka disappears into black waters if she doesn’t.
Luka’s report on her is only two lines:Contact made. Threat understood.
Medieval. Crude.Po ponyatiyam—according to the code. Exactly the kind of move my father would’ve made without blinking. The kind of move that used to make my stomach twist before I learned to shut that part down.
I slam the folder harder than I mean to. The sound cracks through the room like a shot.
* * *
The door opens without a knock.
Galina Ivanovna doesn’t believe in knocking. She enters like it’s still her house. In a way, it is. She survived everything this family put her through—Stalin, the wild nineties when Bratva wars made Moscow look like a war zone. She poured tea and hid bodies and outlived everyone who thought they could tell her what to do.
Bergamot hits my nose before I see the cup. Fine bone china, the old St. Petersburg pattern she refuses to give up. She sets it on the desk with a click. Her way of saying pay attention.
“Pokhoronnye marshy, vnuchok?” she rasps. Funeral marches? Her voice is all cigarettes and old rage. “Devochkayesche dazhe ne priekhala.The girl isn’t even here yet and you’re already burying her.”
“Soon,” I say. I keep my back to her. Galina taught me to lie, but she also taught me she’d always know when I did it.
“Tridtsat’ shest minut.” Thirty-six minutes. She’s been counting since Vadim announced his little ultimatum at the skhod last week. “You have time to stop torturing Tchaikovsky and think like a human being.”
I don’t answer. The tea sits there, untouched, sending up little curls of steam.
She moves up beside me and puts her hand on my elbow. Her grip is stronger than it should be at seventy-eight. She’s put people in the ground who were younger and healthier than I am now.
“You signed that contract this afternoon.” Her thumb presses into the inside of my arm like she’s checking my pulse. “Before the Bratva vote. Before you had to.”
“Blyad,” I mutter under my breath. “Should’ve known you would notice.”
“You wanted this,” she says.
“I want my chair,” I answer. “This is the price.”
“Mmm.” That sound means she doesn’t believe me and doesn’t feel like arguing. “Abrat, huh? Luka told me you sent him to arrange Belgian boarding school papers three days ago. Before anything was agreed.”
My jaw locks. That little fucker is going to lose a tooth for that. Sovietnik or not, some things stay between me and my decisions.
“You’re not just securing an asset, Romochka.” She pats my chest right over my heart. It’s beating too fast. “You’re planning something that needs her to say yes.”
If I deny it, she’ll know I’m lying. If I confirm it, she’ll remind me what it cost every other Volkov man who tried to be smarter than the game.
“What did Vadim tell you to make?” she asks at last.
