Page 77 of The Pakhan’s Debt by Leona White

Her eyes narrow at the title, but she answers, “No reply to Sergei. No public move. Feed a false receipt through the leak and see who reaches for it.”

Abramov lifts his head. “False receipt for what?”

Elena taps Sergei’s letter once. “A doctor’s follow-up. Something harmless enough to travel.”

Leonid’s pen stops moving.

She keeps going. “Reduce access around me, but don’t make the whole house act like the pregnancy changed command. Put me in the legal room with every Sokolov-linked file.”

Leonid lifts a finger to speak, and Elena cuts him off. “I need proxy chains, dormant entities, marriage-trigger language, inheritance clauses, and any registrar instruction tied to household status.”

Leonid writes fast.

Elena looks at him. “Not summaries. I want originals.”

He nods. “You’ll have them.”

I look at Abramov. “And the leak?”

Abramov’s phone vibrates against the table. He picks it up, listens for three seconds, then pulls the tablet closer and scrolls hard enough that his thumb almost snaps.

“Driver channel first,” he says. “Side gate second. One of the outside men spotted a face he didn’t know near the service lane when Dr. Markova arrived.”

My hand stills on the table. “Not one of ours?”

Abramov’s mouth tightens. “That’s what he says.”

“Do it,” I say, looking at Dima.

Dima nods once. Then his phone lights in his hand. He reads the message, and his face changes.

“One of my guards caught the driver tied to Karpov’s chain,” he says. “West service room. He was trying to leave.”

Elena’s hand flattens on the table.

I stand. “I’ll meet him there.”

She rises too.

“No,” I say.

“Yes,” she says. “If he watched me, he can look at me while he explains who paid him.”

Dima goes very still.

I hold her stare. There’s no keeping this from her now. Karpov already put her body into circulation.

“Bring him here,” I say.

The driver comes in with a bruised eye, a split lip, and his hands bound. He sees me first, then Elena, and his face shifts before he can hide it.

I step in and hit him. He drops to one knee, and Dima drags him back up by his bound arms.

“Look at her again like that,” I say, “and I’ll take your eyes out.”

His breathing turns ragged. “Pakhan, I only saw the doctor.”

The room goes still.