"These dates," he says, tapping a line with his bandaged finger, "correspond to the shipments that came up short."
I feel the implication settle within me, cold and clear.
"Boris blamed the Italians for those losses," I reply. "Father believed him."
"Which means the conflict wasn't collateral," Maksim points out. "It was a cover."
I lean back, my pulse steadying into something colder. Anger, yes—but also a grim sense of admiration. Boris didn't just betray us; he crafted a narrative that made his betrayal seem like loyalty. He stole from the family while pretending to protect it.
"And positioned himself as the solution," Maksim adds, his voice flat with reluctant respect. "Elegant, in a brutal way."
"It ends," I declare.
I close the laptop—not because I'm finished, but because the next steps are already taking shape. "One more hit. The main distribution center on the South Side. The heart. If we take that down, he bleeds where everyone can see."
Maksim studies me for a moment longer than necessary.
"And then?" he asks.
"Then we confront my father and force him to choose," I say. "Stability or blood. He will choose stability. He always has."
A pause.
Maksim's gaze is neither accusatory nor softened.
"Your father has protected Boris for decades," he says quietly. "Blood may matter more than you want to admit."
"My father protected an asset," I reply. The words flow easily; I was raised on them. "The moment Boris becomes a liability, that protection disappears."
I recognize how it sounds as soon as I say it.
Asset. Liability. Disappears.
Language from the file. Language I've used with Maksim for years.
His eyes remain on me, too sharp to be deceived by comfort, too honest to ignore the past still lingering between us. I feel old shame rise—quick and hot—and I don't push it away this time. I let it linger. Let it sting.
"It's different now," I say before I can stop myself. "You know it is. What I feel for you isn't?—"
"I know," he interrupts, his tone gentle yet tightening my throat. "I know it's different."
The silence that follows isn't heavy.
It is... lived-in.
Like two men who have stopped avoiding what they both already understand.
Three days. Three raids. Four motels. A handful of meals eaten from containers to avoid lingering too long. We are running on cash, exhaustion, and a focus that makes time blur at the edges.
We sleep in shifts. Always. One of us half-awake, listening for a car door, a footstep, a knock that's too hard.
Nights hit me hardest—how close we are and how quickly proximity becomes habit. In the cabin, intimacy felt like a storm; here, it is quieter. It's in the way his knee brushes mine under the cheap motel blanket, the way my hand finds his wrist before I fall asleep, fingers closing lightly as if to check that he is still here. Still solid. Still real.
He always gives it back.
Not in words.
In the small, steady return of pressure.
