Katya leans forward, cigarette forgotten in the ashtray, her expression drawn tight with grim certainty. “It’s coordinated. He was waiting for an opportunity. Maksim, this is his move. This is what he’s been waiting for. He struck when your guard was down.”
Her words hang heavily between us. My pulse drowns everything else out, loud and savage in my ears.
She’s right. I know she’s right.
Anton has been circling for months, his loyalties splintering beneath the surface, his meetings with the old guard cloaked as “honoring their traditional values”. I wanted to believe it was nothing more than that—nostalgia, old men clinging to rituals that no longer had a place in the world I’m building.
I wanted to believe I could watch him, keep him close, outplay him before he had the chance to step out of line.
But I underestimated him.
He waited until I was vulnerable. Until my focus was split. Until Ivy was at my side.
Lev rubs a hand over his jaw. “It’s a power play. He took what matters most to you, and he’s going to be using her as the wedge to pry thePakhan’sseat out from under you. This is the start of a coup.”
A coup.
My knuckles ache from how hard I’m gripping the edge of the table.
In the back of my mind, I’ve been expecting one, haven’t I? The rumbling beneath the surface has been there for months. I’ve know that, and so has myKrug.The sidelong glances, the backroom whispers, the subtle refusals to follow my directives without question. I’ve been tamping down the cracks in the ice, thinking I could control the spread before it got too big.
Clearly, I was wrong about how much time I thought we still had. Just as I was wrong about Anton’s ambitions.
“Matvey,” I say, my voice harsh. “Who’s gone over so far?”
He hesitates, which is always a bad sign. “It’s a fucking mess over here. Aside from us, Andrey told me half the hierarchy hasn’t responded to your calls to reconvene. The other half… they’re answering, but not as enthusiastically as they should be. They’re watching to see what happens before they choose a side.”
Cowards.
Every last one of them.
These men sat at my table, ate from my hand. Took my money, kissed my ring, called mePakhan. And now they slink into Anton’s shadow like rats abandoning a ship they think might sink. They believe his way, my father’s way, is safer. That the brutal, predictable stagnation of our Bratva is the true future.
“Put me through to him,” I growl.
Roman’s jaw tics, his hand hovering over the phone on the table. He wants to tell me to wait, I know he does, to plan. Wisely, he doesn’t. He knows me well enough to understand that waiting isn’t in my nature. Not in a situation like this when Ivy’s life hangs in the balance.
“I’ll call you later,” Matvey says before dropping his end of the line.
Roman glances across the table to his sister. It’s a brief look, one they share that I don’t bother decoding. I know exactly what they’re thinking. That I’m acting irrationally. I’m putting the ball back in Anton’s court with no plan to make things equal, let alone tilt them in my favor.
But I don’t care.
Every nerve in me is being set on fire the longer Ivy remains his captive.
Seconds later, Anton’s voice crackles through the speaker, smooth and incredibly self-satisfied. “Maksim… I was wondering when you’d call to have a chat.”
“You have something of mine,” I say. My tone is calm, but I can feel Lev’s eyes on me. He knows the calm is just a veneer over the violence boiling underneath.
Anton chuckles. “Ah, yes. The English tutor. Pretty little thing. She has spirit, I’ll give her that. More than I expected. Though I imagine you already know that intimately.”
“Where is she?” I grind out through gritted teeth.
He ignores my question, plowing ahead as if I haven’t said anything at all. “It seems you’ve developed quite a fondness for her. Your father did warn you what happens when you develop an underbelly, Maksim. Though, it seems those lessons died with him. What a shame.”
I don’t rise to the bait. “What do you want?”
There’s another chuckle, darker this time. “You still don’t understand, Maksim. Your time is finished. My time begins. And she… well, she’s my proof. ThePakhan’swoman, in my custody. Do you know how the oldbrigadiersare reacting? They are already hailing me as the man who finally cut out the Bratva’s weakness.”
