Page 10 of Bratva Baby

I think of Grigor, then I think better of it. If my uncle already knows, I hand him leverage.

If he doesn’t and I accuse Maks without enough proof to force action, I become a problem inside the family.

I go to my bedroom, change out of silk and diamonds, wipe my face clean, and pull on a black sweater and soft grey lounge pants. I tie my hair back and sit at my dining table with my laptop, the drive, and a notebook. I write down what I know from memory.

By eleven thirty, I’ve made two lists. One is what I know. The other is what I need before I can move. I stand, restless, and walk to the window.

My building overlooks a quieter street just off the main avenue. At this hour, the road lies mostly empty under the streetlamps, with the occasional car passing slowly.

I fold my arms and stare out, trying to think ahead. There’s still a chance I can get in front of this. There’s still a chance Maks only meant to frighten me.

The thought hardly stays before I strip it down for what it is—a lie I’m telling myself. Maks doesn’t leave loose ends.

A dark sedan turns onto my street and slows. Every muscle in my body locks. Then the car eases to the curb across from my building and settles there under the streetlamp. I peer into the night. I know that car. It has the same make, color, and Leonidov plate bracket with the tiny scratch near the left side.

I’ve seen it outside warehouses, family houses, and once at the cemetery after my father’s burial, when two enforcement men stood beside it pretending to be mourners.

The driver doesn’t get out. Neither does the man in the passenger seat. They just sit there watching. My mouth goes dry so fast it hurts. Near midnight, and now I have my answer.

Maks sent them to watch me, to learn my next step, but that’s not what turns my blood cold. The worst of it is simpler than that.

When the timing works for him and it can be done without noise, he’s going to have me killed.

3

SOFIYA

I collect what I need with both hands working and no wasted motion.

My real passport.

A forged international passport.

Cash in euros, dollars, and rubles.

Two old keys with no labels.

A folded note in my father’s handwriting with three names, one phone number, and one line I used to roll my eyes at when I was younger.

I pick up my original phone, the backup phone.

Charger. Medication. Flashlight. Battery pack. Papers. The list in my head keeps ticking over while I pull drawers, check envelopes, and clear shelves.

I drag open the bottom drawer of the walnut chest and stop for half a second.

The gun is still there.

He placed it in my hand a few days before the heart attack that officially killed him. A Makarov pistol, compact, solid, dark in the low light, with a weight that makes a point the second it touches skin. I argued with him right here in front of the tall storage cabinet in my dressing room, angry enough to forget caution.

I’m a documentation manager, I told him. Not an enforcer.

All the more reason, Dochka, he’d answered.

He showed me the basics in the voice he used for ledgers and route sheets. Grip. Safety. Magazine. Sight line.

Tears well up in my eyes as I pick up the weapon.

Father understood that the danger that surrounded him so completely would come for me one day.