Page 36 of Marked By the Mob

The meeting room is thick with cigar smoke and tension when we enter. Six of our most trusted captains sit around the long mahogany table, their conversations dying the moment they notice Emma walking in behind us. I watch their expressions shift from surprise to wariness to barely concealed curiosity as she takes a seat in the corner chair Rurik gestures toward.

She doesn’t belong here. Every man in this room knows it. An FBI agent sitting in on Bratva business is the kind of thing that gets people killed. But Rurik made the call, and none of them will question him. Not openly, anyway.

I settle into my usual spot at the table’s right side while Artur drops into the chair across from me. Rurik takes the head position, his pale eyes sweeping the room with that controlled authority that makes even hardened criminals straighten their spines.

“Continue,” Rurik says simply.

One of our senior captains clears his throat and returns his attention to the shipping manifests spread across the table.He’s a thick-shouldered man in his fifties with graying hair and hands scarred from decades of enforcement work. “The Pacific routes are running clean. No issues with customs at the usual checkpoints.”

“What about the Seattle shipment?” Artur asks, leaning back in his chair with deceptive casualness.

“Delayed.” The captain’s jaw tightens. “Port authority flagged one of the containers for random inspection. We had to reroute through Vancouver, which added three days and cost us the delivery window.”

I glance at Emma. She sits perfectly still, her gray-green eyes tracking the conversation without obvious reaction. But I know her well enough now to see the way her fingers rest against her thigh, the slight tension in her shoulders. She’s cataloging every detail and filing it away for later use.

The thought should bother me more than it does.

“The Vancouver route is compromised,” another captain says. This one is younger, maybe forty, with sharp features and a reputation for moving product faster than anyone else in our network. “Border patrol increased their presence after that weapons bust last month. We need alternate options.”

He spreads a map across the table, his thick finger tracing the current shipping lanes. “We could push everything through Portland, but that means dealing with the Italians. They’ll want a cut.”

“Fuck the Italians,” Artur mutters. “We’re not paying tribute to move our own shit through territory we’ve held for twenty years.”

The discussion continues, voices rising and falling as the captains debate routes, costs, and risks. I watch Emma from the corner of my eye. She hasn’t moved, hasn’t spoken, but her attention never wavers. When someone mentions a transport problem involving new traffic cameras along Highway 101, I see something flicker across her face.

Recognition.

She knows that route. Of course she does. The FBI probably has surveillance on half the roads we use.

The room falls into frustrated silence as the captains stare at the map, searching for solutions that don’t involve paying off rivals or risking increased law enforcement attention.

Then Emma speaks. “Highway 26 through the Coastal Range.”

Every head turns toward her. The silence shifts from thoughtful to dangerous in the space of a heartbeat. The older captain’s hand moves subtly toward the weapon I know he keeps holstered under his jacket. Others look at her with suspicion.

Emma doesn’t flinch. She stands and moves to the table, her finger landing on the map with confident precision. “You’re trying to avoid the new cameras on 101, but you’re not accounting for the seasonal logging routes. Highway 26 cuts through the mountains and connects to rural roads that bypass the main checkpoints entirely. The traffic is lighter, the surveillance is minimal, and if you time it right, you can move through during shift changes when patrol presence drops.”

The older captain stares at her like she just spoke in tongues. “How the fuck do you know about logging routes?”

“I’m FBI,” Emma says flatly. “We map criminal transport patterns. That includes knowing which roads you use and which ones you don’t.”

Artur laughs, sharp and surprised. “She’s got a point.”

Rurik studies the map, his expression unreadable. Then he looks at the captain. “Check it. If the route is viable, we use it.”

He nods slowly, his gaze still locked on Emma with a mixture of respect and distrust. “Yes, sir.”

The meeting continues, but the energy has shifted. The captains are more cautious now, more aware of Emma’s presence. They speak in vaguer terms, avoid specifics, and glance at her frequently like they’re waiting for her to reveal herself as the threat they all know she is.

When Rurik finally dismisses them, they file out quickly, their voices low as they discuss what just happened. I catch fragments of Russian, words like “risk,” “liability,” and “dangerous.”

They’re not wrong.

Once the room empties, Rurik turns to Emma. “That was either very smart or very stupid.”

“Probably both,” she admits.

I stand and gesture toward the door. “Come on. If you’re going to be here, you might as well see the rest of it.”