I nod to Bogdan, and he breaks away from us. I lead Gabriella up the metal stairs to the mezzanine office. The room is glass on two sides, looking down over the main floor like a captain’s bridge. There’s a steel desk, a wall of gray filing cabinets, a map of the Chicagoland area threaded with red twine. No décor, no softness. All function.
Gabriella drifts over to the glass, looking out over the floor. Two men inventory a shipment; a tech cycles through camera feeds. A mechanic rolls a jack under one of my shipping vans. She presses her palm to the cold pane.
“So this is your HQ?” she asks without turning.
“One of them,” I say. “We don’t centralize Bratva operations, if we can help it.”
She turns back to me. “And downstairs. They called you…Pakhan?” She shapes the syllables carefully with her lips, like they’re an incantation she has to pronounce just right. “What does that actually mean?”
“The head,” I say. “Boss, if you like it.”
“Of course.”
I can tell she’s overwhelmed and not sure what to say, so I take over. I move to the map of the city and tap it. “I control the Orlov Bratva, and I control AngelCorp. Everything that happens in this city, I know about, which means I make hard decisions when necessary.”
“Like keeping guns in your office.”
“That’s actually an easy decision to make. I’m never more than a few feet from a gun. I do whatever’s necessary.” I step over to the window and sweep my hand over the floor. “Everyone here is my responsibility. Not just their incomes, but their lives.”
“And you run everything?”
“Almost. There’s a council… think of them like a C-suite board. It’s my job to keep them rich and happy, even if that means not giving them what they think they want in the moment, like with this merger.”
“How does this tie into AngelCorp? The trucks, the warehouses, the logistics… is it all a front?”
“No, AngelCorp is real, though it did start as something like a front. It was conceived as the logistics network of the Bratva—how we move merchandise, illicit goods. We grew, and our networks became more sophisticated. My father, the formerpakhan,eventually began using them to move legitimate goods. And when I took over after his death, I looked at the numbers, realizing that if we could move more into regular business, we wouldn’t need the Bratva dealings. We could make all of the money we need, with none of the risk. The Bratva could exist in name only.”
She looks a bit confused but also intrigued. “What’s the plan? You’re going to buy your way out?”
“This is where you come into the picture. Johan Morozov’s company, Dandelion, is a tech revolution in the making. Using his crypto transfer networks and AI-powered efficiency, I could take AngelCorp to new heights inlogistics. We’d be so profitable that one would have to be a fool to try to make money moving illicit goods around the country.”
There’s so much more to tell about the role I’ve played in her life. That Peter Morozov is her father. That Johan is her brother. That her life was, for all intents and purposes, designed.
But that would be too much, too soon.
She wraps the robe tighter. Silence hangs heavy.
“So I’m having a mobster’s child.” She glances aside for a moment, considering her words.
I cross the space slowly, careful not to crowd her. I stand close enough that she could choose to step back if she wants. She doesn’t. I rest my hands on both of her shoulders.
“You’re carryingmychild,” I say. “And I will keep you both safe. That’s all you need to know.”
“So you get to decide what I know and what I don’t?”
“It’s for your own safety. These next few weeks and months are going to be difficult. But we’re going to get through them.”
She sighs, shaking her head. “You make all of this sound so simple.”
“It is simple to me,” I reply. “Hard. Ugly sometimes. But simple.”
Her eyes flash. “Sasha, this is my life we’re talking about here. I didn’t sign up to be… this—” She nods towards the glass, the shipments, the men who would kill for me without amoment’s hesitation. “I don’t even know whatthisis, to be honest.”
“I know you didn’t choose it.”
“But why? Why me?”
Because I promised a dying man I would end a war he started. Because I made a promise to protect her. Because of all the reasons I can’t say.
