Pyotr walked out, and I refocused on the documents in front of me. Two hours later, something in the two open files caught my eye.
One was the inventory from our Bratva clinics, the other a shipment of pharmaceuticals from Artyom—the same ones he had leveraged for Ninel’s hand in marriage, medications we couldn’t otherwise get. They included advanced clotting agents, which prevent severe bleeding, specialty pain meds, and fast-acting injectable opioids for extreme trauma pain, rare antibiotics for multidrug-resistant infections, recombinant growth factors and platelet boosters to accelerate tissue repair, and emergency injectables for shock, severe blood loss, anaphylaxis, and acute trauma stabilization.
Two items kept showing up as unaccounted for: injectable opioids and platelet boosters.
I double-checked everything we’d received from Artyom; warehouse records matched perfectly. According to protocol, every vial from a batch should be fully used before moving on to the next. But as I cross-checked the batch numbers and clinic documents, some were never recorded as used.
Even though the attacks had largely stopped, the medication was still disappearing at the same rate. The thief wasn’t exactly smart; they hadn’t changed how much they were stealing.
I was pissed.
As if someone stealing from us wasn't fucking bad enough, it had been going on for over a damn year before I caught it. When Ninel was kidnapped, I took it hard. Things had worked out for her in the end, but I hadn’t been able to forgive Jaroslav—I’d warned him that marrying Vera would trigger the Rykovs, and it had. That decision had set off a chain that led to Artyom abducting Ninel.
The thought that we could’ve lost her, another member of our family, because of selfish choices, hit harder than anything.Her kidnapping dredged up all the emotions I’d buried after the deaths of our parents, something I blamed myself for.
I remembered the last night with them. I’d wanted Thai food from my favorite restaurant, even tried to sneak out, and Dad caught me. We argued, Mom intervened, hugged me, and promised to talk to him. That was the last conversation I had with my parents. Over and over, I ran through what I could’ve done differently, what I should have done, but nothing changed the fact that they were gone.
He told me I was irresponsible, and he’d expected so much more from me.
To numb the pain, I drank, something I'd never done outside social situations. Eventually, I broke down in front of my brothers. None of them or our sisters blamed me for our parents’ deaths, but their understanding didn’t erase the void or stop my mind from drifting back to it. I’d carried that guilt for thirteen years; adjusting wouldn’t come overnight.
Now, because I had let my emotions get the better of me, I was faced with this mess. If my brothers knew someone was stealing from us because of my oversight, they’d have my head and question my competence. I couldn’t let that happen, not after all I’d done to keep our faction’s finances secure, and not after Dad’s last words to me.
Just then, the office door opened, and Pyotr walked in, a glass of whiskey in his hand.
“The ladies are here, and Katya threatened that if you didn’t come out and have some fun, she and the others would come up here to have their shindig.”
I rolled my eyes and chuckled. I loved my sister-in-law, and we were close enough that I knew refusing would only makeher more determined. I closed the files, stood, and buttoned my jacket.
“You’ve got me for one hour.”
Pyotr grinned. “We can get a lot done in an hour.”
I followed him out, already planning that the moment the hour was up, I’d return to my desk and track down the traitor in our ranks.
***
Over the next few days, I hit every faction clinic and sifted through hours of footage. It would’ve been faster to ask Timur Morovoz, our head tech, to pull the clips, but I didn’t want anyone else to know why I was poking around. I told my brothers I was auditing equipment and staffing; that kept questions to a minimum. I gave the clinic guards a quiet warning: if anything leaked, there’d be consequences for them and their families.
Minutes morphed into hours in each tiny security room. I watched the same courier route until the pattern spelled a name: Jasper Romonoff. He always showed up with the shipments that contained vials of the missing medications.
Knowing the culprit was one thing, but finding out who the fuck he was supplying to was another. Based on my calculations, Jasper had stolen just over one hundred thousand dollars’ worth of medication and probably sold it at four or five times the original price. He was about to find out that crossing the Safin faction was paid in blood, and I was the cashier.
My hands clenched the wheel as I drove to his place. I had only brought Jasper into the ranks because Liam Hrynin, who'd been loyal to us for seven years with a solid record, had vouchedfor him. But something about Jasper had always nagged at the back of my mind. Desperation to get men during the continuous attacks had pushed me to ignore it.
Now, if I didn’t want my brothers to know about this, I couldn’t confront Liam, either. We ran full searches on every man we hired, but because Jasper came highly recommended, I hadn’t dug deep enough. And now I fucking regretted it.
I pulled up in front of Jasper’s run-down apartment building and took the stairs two at a time. I didn’t bother to knock. I kicked open the dry, rotted door, my gun already in my hand, then stepped inside, the door slamming behind me. The place smelled of sweat and cheap cologne. Jasper was on the sofa, his hand jerking his cock as erotic moans came from the laptop on the coffee table in front of him.
My blue gaze darkened in disgust as he scrambled to cover himself, his eyes wide.
He shot to his feet. “M-Mr. Safin…to what do I owe this pleasure?”
I stalked across the apartment and slammed the butt of the gun into the side of his head. Jasper grunted and went down, blood trickling from his temple.
I kicked him over and planted my foot on his chest, my gun aimed at the space between his eyes.
“Mr. Romonoff, did you think you could steal from my family without anyone finding out?” I growled.
