Page 96 of The Pakhan’s Debt by Leona White

The words sit on the page. Mine. Maksim reaches around me, takes my cold tea, and replaces it with fresh tea from the samovar. I glance back at him.

“I’m fine,” I say.

“You’ve been fine for four hours.”

“That’s my endurance limit?”

“No. That’s your lying limit.”

Leonid coughs and reaches for his water. Nina turns to an open file on her laptop, though her eyes don’t move for a long second.

I take the tea and pick up a biscuit, partly because my fingers have started to shake and partly because arguing with Maksim in front of witnesses would only feed his ego. The biscuit breaks dry between my teeth while I look back at the sequence. Sergei built this trap with signatures, old records, and timing, and now we’re using the same pieces against him. Cancel the old power before claiming the new one. Prove the old record before moving control. Let the paper he trusted turn on him in the right order.

Maksim crouches beside my chair and points to the operational grant. “This gives me day-to-day control.”

“Yes.”

“But you keep legal ownership.”

“Yes.”

“And no asset sale, route transfer, merger, pledge, debt alignment, or foreign access deal can move unless both signatures sit on the same stage.”

“Mine and yours,” I say.

His eyes hold mine. “Good.”

My fingers close over the edge of his sleeve before I let go.

A phone vibrates near the ashtray. Maksim picks it up, reads, and his face shuts down.

“What?” I ask.

“Karpov.”

Leonid looks up. “Direct?”

“Burner, routed twice.”

Maksim sets the phone on the table so we can all read.

You have hours, not days. The Italians already know she carries the line. Claim her before they price her, or cut her loose before she costs you the house.

My laugh comes out short and ugly. “What a helpful little snake.”

Maksim looks at the message. “Traitor.”

“He’s not wrong,” I say, and every man looks at me. “Moretti will push for a meeting now. If I stay undefined, they’ll argue I’m still open. If you claim me too soon, Sergei’s old clauses may wake up. Karpov wants you panicked enough to choose fast and wrong.”

Maksim slides the phone away. “Then we don’t give him the reaction he wants.”

Leonid’s secure line rings. He answers, listens, then covers the receiver with one hand. “Filatov’s office paused two filings. They’re calling it administrative review.”

Nina reaches for her laptop and pulls up the records log. “That’s a stall, not a review. Someone told him to wait.”

“Or paid him to,” Maksim says.

Leonid listens again, then hangs up. “Fuel packet stalled too. Semyonov’s assistant says one page is missing.”