Page 9 of The Pakhan’s Debt by Leona White

“No.” My hands shake, and he notices but doesn’t comment on it. “You don’t get to tell me my father built some trap under my name and then stand there like not shooting me is some favor.”

He frowns at me, as if he’s going over everything he’s just said. “I didn’t say it was.”

“You implied it.”

“I implied that your father knew exactly how to corner me.”

“Then kill him when you find him and leave me out of it.”

A beat passes. Then he says, very evenly, “If leaving you out of it were possible, you wouldn’t be here.”

That kills the next thing I was going to say. He walks back to the table, sits, and pulls the second file toward him again. When he speaks now, the edge is gone. “Sit,” he says. “And listen carefully, because this is the last calm explanation you’re getting tonight.”

I stay standing one second longer out of spite, then sit because I need to know and because he knows I need to know, which is its own fresh humiliation. He opens the file and turns it toward me.

At first I only see dense legal text. Then my eyes catch on the signature line—mine again.

But this time, it isn’t an old declaration or some temporary directorship form from years ago. This is tied to a structure nested deeper, attached to contingent control rights and emergency approval language I never would’ve signed knowingly at any age. Maksim slides the page all the way across until it rests against my hand.

“You still haven’t heard the worst of it,” he says, pressing his lips into a thin line.

3

ELENA

Istare at the page in front of me, then at him, then back at the page again like the words might rearrange themselves into something survivable if I give them enough time.

Maksim sits across from me with one hand resting near the file and the other braced against the arm of his chair, his posture loose as if he already knows the papers and all my options are under his control tonight. I think he’s enjoying my distress more than he lets on.

“What’s worse than this?” I ask, and even to my own ears my voice sounds thinner than I want it to.

His gaze doesn’t leave my face. “The fact that even now, with your name in all the right places, you still can’t fix it.”

I look back down at the page because if I keep staring at him, I might say something stupid enough to get myself thrown out a window. “That’s convenient for you.”

“It isn’t.”

I let out a short, ugly laugh. “Forgive me if I’m not moved by your inconvenience.”

He ignores that and taps the edge of the document with one finger. “Your father didn’t build a system that gives one person clean control. He built split control.”

I detest the phrase before he even explains it.

“You’re important on paper,” he says. “Enough that your name freezes movement, delays approvals, and keeps certain transfers from clearing without risk. But that doesn’t mean you can sit here tonight and unwind the structure for me.”

I fold my arms and lean back, because if I stay too close to the file, I’m going to rip something in half. “That’s not exactly heartbreaking.”

His cold, dark eyes stay on mine while one veined hand settles on the edge of the file, fingers flexing once like he’s got all the time in the world and expects me to notice that too.

“You’re legally central,” he continues, his voice even. “But you’re operationally blind.” He turns one page with his thumb, glances down, then back at me from under dark lashes that need not be this distracting on a man explaining how thoroughly my life has been wrecked. “You don’t know which entities are live and which are decoys.”

He keeps going like he’s reading out the weather, while I sit there trying not to lunge across the table and wipe that composure off his mouth. “You don’t know where the originals are stored, or which registrars were paid off, which nominee directors still answer to Sergei, which ones answer to nobody now, or what order of approvals moves which assets safely.”

By the time he finishes, he’s still sitting there all broad shoulders, steady hands, and that infuriating almost-smile, like he hasn’t just listed twelve different ways my father turned me into an inconvenience with paperwork.

I want to throw the file at his head. I also want him to stop looking at me like that, and while we’re at it, I want my pulse to behave itself. Since none of that’s happening, I settle for clearing my throat. “You’re making me sound decorative.”

He inclines his head and a lock of silver-gray hair falls over his temple. I catch my breath. “That would imply that I’m finding this situation pretty.”