Page 1 of Bratva Baby

1

SOFIYA

Something bad is going to happen tonight.

I’m standing near the ballroom arch in a silk dress my aunt chose for me and diamonds my mother would’ve called excessive if she were still alive to say it.

The chandelier above us throws gold across glass and marble. A string quartet plays near the terrace doors.

Waiters move through the crowd with champagne and little white spoons of caviar and food nobody here actually needs.

Men who own ports laugh with men who regulate ports.

Wives in couture murmur over charity galas and schools and foundation boards while their husbands trade access and debt with a shake of the hand.

This is how the Leonidovs like to live.

Clean on the surface. Filthy underneath.

My family built itself in the nineties when everything was breaking open and everyone greedy enough could grab a piece.

The older men stole fuel, skimmed freight, bribed customs, moved goods through bonded warehouses, and buried cash under layers of paper until theft started looking like commerce.

Then they evolved. Or at least that’s the word they use when they want to sound civilized.

Now it’s logistics, real estate, import firms, cold storage, port leasing, government friends, and charity photos in the business pages. We still move what needs moving.

We just invoice it better.

I know exactly how much of it is real because my father made sure I did.

He kept the books, the fronts, the route structures, the hidden reconciliations. He taught me that every empire worth fearing rests on paper first. Men with guns only matter after someone makes the numbers line up.

When I was twelve, he put an invoice in front of me and asked what was wrong with it.

I told him the vendor number was off by one digit. The smile he gave me was rare by his standards. Then he asked me what that meant. Thus began my training.

By sixteen, I could read a customs declaration and tell whether the lie sat in the cargo, the weight, the declared destination, or the timing.

By twenty-four, I’m working in the import business with a title neat enough to print on a card and a skillset nobody sane would advertise.

So when the mood in the ballroom shifts, I know it for what it is.

My uncle Grigor stands near the center of the room with a deputy minister on one side and a shipping investor from Hamburg on the other.

He looks mildly amused by everyone around him until one of his senior men reaches him, leans in, and says something into his ear.

Grigor’s face doesn’t fall.

Men like him don’t give rooms that satisfaction.

But his hand closes once around the stem of his glass and his lips press into a thin line, and that’s enough.

I let my attention drift without moving my head much. Maks is near the bar in a black jacket and white shirt open at the throat. He’s talking to one of the freight boys from Tallinn, smiling as if he doesn’t have a single bad thought in his head.

If you photographed him from the right angle, he’d look like the future of the family. Clean lines. Good cheekbones. A worthy son of the empire.

I know better.