The Trophy Room didn't open until eight in the evening, which made it perfect for morning meetings. The staff knew to stay away when the Chernov brothers gathered in the back office, and the soundproofing I'd installed ensured our conversations stayed private.
Vartan was already there when I arrived, pacing the length of the room like a caged animal. My youngest brother had inherited our father's temper—quick to ignite, slow to cool. The scar that bisected his left eyebrow was a souvenir from a bar fight he'd started at sixteen, and he'd only grown more volatile since.
Semyon sat at the desk, his laptop open, his expression grave. The middle brother, the strategist, the one who thought before he acted. If Vartan was fire, Semyon was ice—and I needed both of them to run this organization effectively.
"What happened?" I asked, not bothering with greetings.
Vartan stopped pacing long enough to slam his fist against the wall. "The warehouse on Pier 17. They hit it last night."
My jaw tightened. Pier 17 was one of our primary storage facilities for weapons moving through the port. We kept the inventory rotating to minimize risk, but there was always something valuable there. "How bad?"
"Bad enough." Semyon turned his laptop to face me, showing security footage. Grainy, dark—the cameras were old, due for an upgrade, I kept postponing. But I could make out figures moving through the space, systematic and efficient. "They knew exactly where to go. Took the Zastava shipment that came in Tuesday, plus the cash reserves we were holding for the Brooklyn distribution."
"Casualties?"
"Two of ours dead. Another three in the hospital." Vartan's voice was tight with fury. "They left one alive on purpose. Sent him back with a message."
"What message?"
"That Pankratov sends his regards. And that this is just the beginning."
I absorbed this in silence, my mind clicking through implications. The Armenians had been circling for months, but this was a declaration of war. A direct strike on our infrastructure, our people, our pride.
"How did they know about the shipment?" I asked quietly.
Semyon and Vartan exchanged a look. It was Semyon who answered, his voice flat. "That's what I've been trying to determine. The delivery schedule was need-to-know. Only a handful of people had access to the timing and location."
"You're saying we have a leak."
"I'm saying it's the only explanation that fits." Semyon pulled up another window on his laptop—not surveillance footage this time, but a spreadsheet of names and dates. "I've been tracking information flow for the past two weeks. Every time we've moved something significant, the Armenians have seemed to anticipate it. They were watching the docks before our shipment arrived. They knew which route our trucks would take from Newark. And now this."
Vartan slammed his fist against the wall again, hard enough to crack the plaster. "I'll kill whoever it is myself. Slowly."
"We need to identify them first." I moved to the window, looking out at the empty club below—the dance floor where civilians would grind against each other tonight, oblivious to the violence that funded their entertainment. "What do we know?"
"The leak has to be someone with access to operations, but not inner circle." Semyon's fingers flew across the keyboard. "I've narrowed it down to about a dozen possibilities. Lieutenants, warehouse managers, a few of the senior drivers. I need more time to trace the specific breach."
"You have forty-eight hours. Vartan, I want extra security on all our locations. Double the guards at the clubs, the restaurants, the gambling rooms. And pull our remaininginventory from the port facilities—distribute it across the safe houses until we know what we're dealing with."
"And Pankratov?" Vartan asked, his eyes bright with bloodlust. "We can't let this stand. If we don't respond—"
"We will respond. But strategically, not emotionally." I turned to face him, letting him see the cold certainty in my expression. "Pankratov wants us to react blindly. To lash out, overextend, make mistakes he can exploit. We're not going to give him that satisfaction."
Vartan looked like he wanted to argue, but he knew better. In the five years since I'd taken control of the organization, I'd proven that patience and precision won more wars than rage. He gave a curt nod and stalked out of the room, already on his phone, barking orders.
Semyon lingered, his expression troubled. "There's something else."
"Tell me."
He hesitated—unusual for my brother, who typically delivered information with clinical detachment. "It's about your surveillance operation. The woman."
Every muscle in my body went rigid. "What about her?"
"Kirill's team spotted something yesterday. Someone else watching her again."
The world narrowed to a single, sharp point. "Explain."
Semyon turned the laptop again, showing a grainy photograph. A man in a dark jacket, standing across the street from an office building. He had a camera with a telephoto lens, aimed at the entrance.
