Page 35 of The Pakhan’s Debt by Leona White

She looks back at the file. “Because then I stop being a problem everyone has to discuss and start being paperwork with a husband attached.”

“Or a handler. Or a legal guardian. Even a transfer point sitting in another house with your access stripped down and your signatures managed.” I pull the other chair out and sit because standing across from her is starting to feel too much like a fight I want for the wrong reasons. “Men tell themselves it’s cleaner. No open dispute. No bidding war. No weak spot under my roof.”

Life drains out of her face. Her eyes go dull, fixed somewhere past me. “You mean put me with the man they trust most to hold me down.”

I say nothing. I don’t need to.

She turns away first and walks to the door. Her hand lands on the knob, then stops. “I found two more notes,” she says without looking back. “One about fallback entities in Italy. One about my being easier to move if I stayed unmarried.”

I feel that in my teeth.

Then she opens the door and leaves me with it.

My tea comes ten minutes later with the morning updates stacked underneath. I take both to the office, set the cup by my elbow, and start reading through overnight movement logs.

Karpov comes in without knocking. He shuts the door behind him, looks at the papers on my desk, then at me.

“Pakhan,” he says, “we need to talk about Elena.”

“What about her?” I ask, keeping my eyes on him because looking away would be a mistake. His voice stays even, his body stays still, and his eyes do the work.

He remains standing. “The Morettis are circling because the Blacklist left her visible and undefined. As long as that stands, every house with money and reach will keep reading her as an opening.”

I study what he’s not saying.

He takes one step closer to the desk. “Right now, she’s still a live question.”

I watch the man, lighter hair going to steel. Cold blue eyes. Impeccable suit. A face arranged into concern, with nothing warm behind it. He stands too still in front of my desk, hands relaxed, shoulders level.

Karpov holds my gaze. “If you don’t claim the question in a way the Blacklist recognizes, another man will answer it.”

Could it be you, Karpov? The man trying to pass stillness off as loyalty?

My eyes narrow. “Is that advice or interest?”

11

ELENA

It’s one of my allowed weekly outings. Escorted, but I have another reason for needing this one today. I keep that reason folded small and tight inside me.

The black SUV stops outside a bakery row off Tverskaya, and the guards get out before I do. One man steps ahead to clear the short walk, and two close in beside me, shaved heads, dark coats, wires at their collars, faces set in that dead-house way I’m starting to hate.

I’m wearing a cream sweaterdress under a camel coat, brown heels, and oversized sunglasses because I didn’t sleep again and my eyes show it. My hair is pinned into a knot that took effort I resented, and my mouth still knows how to look calm when I need it to. From a distance, I probably look composed. Up close, I’m tired enough to snap.

“Bakery first,” I say, heading for the short steps before they redirect me.

“Bakery first,” one repeats into his mic. I roll my eyes and keep walking. People look twice because they always have, and today they look a third time because armed men are walking beside me.

Two steps from the bakery, I change course and head for the dress shop at the corner because a lavender floral dress on the mannequin catches me right in the chest. The guards stop with me, murmur into their mics, then shift as one and follow. One drops half a step behind my left shoulder. One moves ahead and checks the door. The third hangs off to my right, close enough to block and far enough to pretend he isn’t.

We go in like a small tactical unit assigned to neutralize knitwear.

Inside, a lone saleswoman looks up from behind the counter. Her face does a quick, human thing, concern first, then calculation, then the smile she puts on for rent and survival. A tall woman in sunglasses with three goons behind her isn’t normal morning traffic.

“Dobry den’, Madam,” she says.

I nod once and slide my sunglasses up into my hair. “The lavender dress on the mannequin,” I say, then glance at my escorts. “Before they scare off your morning business.”