Page 34 of The Pakhan’s Debt by Leona White

“That answer again.” It comes out harsher than she means it to. “You keep using it like it explains everything.”

“It explains enough.”

Her eyes flare. “No, it explains what you don’t want to explain.”

I see the truth of it hit her the same second she throws it at me. I reach for the papers. She pulls back. My hand closes around her wrist instead. Warm skin. Fast pulse. I look at her properly then. Her face has gone pink clear down to her throat. Her breathing is off, like she’s got a secret sitting behind those eyes, and whatever it is, she’s guarding it with everything she has. Her eyes stay on mine, still full of fight, still daring me to push harder, but there’s something under that now. She’s holding something back.

I keep hold of her wrist and look straight at her. “What are you hiding from me, Elena? I mean really hiding.”

She takes a step back the second I let her go. “So now you’re a clairvoyant?”

“I live in the same house you do,” I say. “That buys me some insight.”

“To your prisoner’s behavior?” she shoots back.

I move before she can say another word. My hand closes on her waist and I put her back against the carved walnut console behind her, old family wood, polished smooth by decades of people with power. “Don’t cross that line,” I say. “Ever.”

Then I let go.

She stays there, breathing hard, one hand braced on the table’s edge. “Fine,” she says. “Then you tell me, Maksim. What are you hiding?”

I look at her for a second after she throws it back at me.

Fair question.

I reach past her, take the file from her hand, and flip it open to the page that bothered me most when Leonid first brought the chain upstairs. “You want to know what I’m not telling you?” I ask. “Fine. Here’s one piece.”

She pushes off the console and comes closer, careful now, the fight still in her, but forced into a smaller space.

I tap the margin note Sergei left in his own hand. “Read that.”

Her eyes move across the page. I watch the moment it lands.

The note is short.

If primary retention becomes unstable, transfer through marital continuity or custodial proxy. Streamline exposure. Preserve signing value.

Her face drains fast, and I notice how her hands shake. “No,” she says, then louder, rougher, “No. This means placement.”

Her eyes jump across the line again, and now she sees it for what it is. Better housing. Marital continuity. Custodial proxy. Cleaner words for the same filthy thing. Offers under the heading of protection, her body turned into a position men can bid on without naming it.

My jaw locks as I watch it hit her. “That,” I say, “is what some men in my house mean when they talk about placing you more efficiently.”

She looks up fast. “Karpov,” she says. “He said something about continuity.” She drops into the chair by the old desk, and her eyes go distant. “He asked if you were claiming me before anyone else got their hands in.”

“Yes.”

“So Sergei wrote down a plan to marry me off if keeping me where I was got inconvenient.”

“Or hand you over through guardianship language, nominee authority, or some clean house arrangement on paper.” I close the file and set it flat on the table between us. “Same outcome. Less noise. Faster control.”

She folds her arms. “And some people here wouldn’t find that obscene.”

“No.” I hold her gaze. “Some would call it practical.”

Her mouth twists with disgust. “Efficient.”

“That’s the word.”