Page 114 of The Pakhan’s Debt by Leona White

The remaining Moretti men look at their boss. The older man nods once, jaw tight, and guns hit the floor one by one.

Dima moves in fast and kicks them out of reach before he collects them. Ilya locks down the stair.

Sergei is the last man upright without blood on him. He looks at the documents still sitting in front of Elena’s empty chair. His pen lies across the first line where he wanted her name.

“Elena,” he says.

She steps out from behind me before I can catch her fully. I close my hand around her wrist, and she looks down at my grip before she looks up at me.

“I won’t go far.”

Every instinct in me says to pull her back.

I let go.

She walks to the table, slowly and carefully, then picks up his pen. Her fingers close around the barrel, and Sergei’s face changes before the plastic cracks. She snaps it in half and drops both pieces onto his documents.

34

ELENA

The broken pen hits Sergei’s papers, and everyone goes still for a beat.

A chair rocks on one bent leg, then tips. Water runs off the edge and taps the floor. Moretti sits under Dima’s gun with one hand pressed to his side, his face gray, his chin set. Even he looks at the snapped pieces. Leonid hunches over his laptop, sleeve torn, glasses crooked. For once, his fingers hover over the keyboard without tapping.

Across the table, Sergei stands with one hand on the chair back, eyes on the pages I signed. Glass dust clings to his sleeve. A thin line of blood runs from his temple.

“Elena.”

Maksim’s head turns a fraction. “Careful.”

Sergei ignores him. “You don’t understand what you’ve done.”

I step around Maksim. His hand catches my coat for a second, then lets go. I touch his fingers once and move on.

“You built this for control,” I say, stopping across from Sergei. “Don’t act surprised because I learned how to use it.”

He looks at me, steady. “I built it because the world eats women who think paper protects them. You were safe because I made you worth guarding.”

“You made me worth selling.”

His mouth tightens. “That’s a child’s reading.”

I pick up the broken pen and turn the pieces in my fingers. “I’m carrying a child. I’m done being read like one.”

His eye twitches.

“You think he won’t use you?” he says. “You think he won’t use the child?”

I glance back at Maksim. He stands with blood on his shirt, gun still in hand, watching Sergei.

“He could,” I say. “I decide whether he does.”

Sergei lets out a short laugh. “He’ll lock you down. Guards, doctors, routes, soft cages. Men who report what you eat and where you sleep. He’ll call it care.”

“Maybe,” I say. “I’ll fight him when he does.” I set the broken pen back on his papers. “The difference is, when he’s wrong, he still sees me.”

The laughter dies.