Page 98 of The Pakhan’s Debt by Leona White

MAKSIM

Elena says she will set herself as the trap, and I hate it before she finishes. I look at her stubborn mouth and the fine bones of her face, and anger moves through me fast.

“Explain,” I say.

“If everything moves cleanly, Sergei hides,” Elena says, her hand flat beside the sequence. “If everything freezes, Moretti gets an opening, and Karpov sells panic. We need enough pressure to force the meeting without handing them control.”

Leonid lowers his pen. “You want the transfer meeting.”

“They think it’s where they buy access or force terms,” she says, leaning back in her chair. “We make it where I sign the new structure.”

“No.”

The word leaves my mouth before she finishes breathing.

Nina looks from the page to Elena. “She’s right. If the new package lands when they expect the old transfer, it’ll be harder to unwind.”

Leonid rubs one hand over his mouth. “Unfortunately, yes.”

I look at him until his hand drops.

Elena sits straighter, pale and tired, with one hand near the page and the other near her stomach. She knows what I’m going to say, and she has already decided to fight me.

“And you’re the center of it,” I say.

Her eyes hold mine. “Yes.”

That’s the problem. I look at the page under Elena’s hand, then at her stomach, then at the men watching us from around the table.

Sergei put her name on the papers. Moretti wants what those papers open. Karpov wants my own men wondering if I’ve gone soft because she’s pregnant and under my roof.

Elena knows all of that.

She still looks at me and waits for permission to walk into the place where they’ll try to use it.

I look at the clock. “Eight p.m., my office. All of you. Nina stays.”

By eight, we’re in my office. Dima at the door, Abramov by the screens, Leonid with the files, Petrov at the table, Nina across from me, Elena at my side.

“Moretti is moving on the debt,” I say. “They’ll try to freeze our companies and force talks.”

“Elena controls the legal path now,” I add. “Nothing moves without her signature, and we move only in the right order.”

I step away from the table before I touch her in front of everyone. Then I turn to Leonid and ask, “Meeting set for tomorrow evening?”

Leonid nods. “They wanted forty-eight hours after the first demand, but they moved it up after Sergei’s acknowledgment.”

He taps the trackpad once. “Tomorrow evening,” he reads. “Private level at the old rail exchange.”

“Of course,” I say. “Somewhere expensive enough for Italians and severe enough for Russians.”

Dima snorts once near the door.

I look at him. “Control room. Ten minutes.”

He straightens. “Yes, Pakhan.”

“Ilya, pull outer roads, east and south first. Abramov, I want every man on the estate sorted by trust level before lunch. Petrov, keep the shells moving, but nothing new goes through old channels. Leonid, Nina, Elena, you stay with the legal package until I call you.”