Page 115 of The Pakhan’s Debt by Leona White

Leonid is back to work. He speaks without looking up. “Second confirmation is in. The placeholder directors are out of both chains.”

Sergei turns fast. “That doesn’t clear without me.”

Leonid shifts the laptop an inch, then pulls it back. “It did.”

“It cleared through the fallback,” I say.

Mancini mutters in Italian. Dima presses the muzzle closer to his shoulder.

“English,” he says.

Mancini goes quiet.

Sergei looks at me again. “You still need the originals.”

“I needed the sequence.”

“You didn’t have it.” His voice hardens.

I hold his gaze. “You corrected me.”

He goes still.

Leonid closes one file and opens another. “Continuity block is in. Child-linked restriction is holding.”

My breath catches. Maksim steps in close, his hand steady at the center of my back.

“Breathe,” he says.

“I am.”

“Badly.”

I glance at him. “You say that a lot.”

“You keep doing it.”

I almost smile, and it hurts.

Sergei watches us, his face set. “So this is your independence. You tie yourself to him in front of men who came to secure what you represent.”

I turn back. “I chose where authority goes. You never gave me that.”

“You would have wasted it.”

“I might have,” I say. “It would still be mine.” I take a step toward him.

He pushes away from the chair. Two of Maksim’s men bring their guns up.

Sergei stops. His eyes move from the guns to the man down by the wall, then to Moretti under Dima’s aim. The table in front of him stays empty.

“Sergei Sokolov,” Maksim says, voice flat behind me.

My father’s attention shifts.

Maksim steps to my side, gun low but ready. “You have nothing left.”

Sergei’s mouth pulls. “I have my daughter.”