The room smells like oil, rust, sweat, concrete. Men already waiting. Not all of them. Just the ones tied to this. The ones who heard it, passed it along, let it sit in their mouths like something they had a right to chew on.
Pietro stands to the left, still and watchful.
Demyan is center-right, shoulders tight, face already defensive.
I step into the middle of them and let the silence stretch until somebody starts to sweat.
Then I shrug off my jacket and hand it to Vaska.
“I’m hearing her name being thrown around this room,” I say. “So let’s save time.”
I look each of them in the eyes. “Who has a problem?”
Nobody answers. Cowards.
Pietro speaks first. “Not a problem, Pakhan. Clarity.”
“Then ask for it like a man.”
His stare stays level. “Men heard that Kaya’s sister is under your roof.”
“She is.”
A shift runs through the room.
No surprise there. I let it sit.
Then I say, “Anything else?”
Demyan’s mouth twists. “Depends.”
I turn to him. “On what?”
“On whether we’re pretending blood means nothing now.”
I take one slow step toward him. “You think that’s what this is?”
“I think hidden blood rots a house from the inside.”
There it is.
The whole room tightens.
Demyan keeps going because he’s too stupid to hear his own funeral starting. “Our fathers learned that under Nikolai.”
For one second, I see blood. Old blood. My father’s floor slick with it. Men begging. Men choking. Fathers dying while sons watched and learned what kind of world they’d been born into.
Then I see Ayla again. Shaking in my office because these men—mymen forgot their place.
My mouth curves. Wrong enough that Demyan’s expression flickers.
“You want to talk about fathers?” I ask softly.
No answer.
I sweep my gaze over the room. “Anybody else?”
Silence.
