Page 110 of Bratva Baby

She points at the desk. “Move it.”

I stare at her for a second, then call two men in and have them move it near the window while Kolya watches from the hall with the expression of a man witnessing the fall of civilization.

Afterward, Sofiya sits at the new angle, sets one hand on her belly, and gives me a pleased smile. “See? Growth.”

Kolya mutters, “For all of us.”

Yuri does very well out of the cleanup.

He gets official control over certain refrigerated routes he used to work around, a clean share in two storage contracts, and enough new respect. “I told you years ago,” he says one afternoon while Sofiya pops pitted cherries from a bowl and reads a transfer sheet. “Soft hands in freight are dangerous.”

Sofiya smiles into the phone. “You also told me your tea was good, and that was a lie.”

“My tea built character.”

“Your tea tasted like boiled regret.”

I lean back in my chair and watch her argue with an old freight man like she isn’t eight months pregnant and currently bossing three houses through paperwork. Yuri laughs so hard he coughs.

Zhenya gets her routes back, though not all at once, and not as charity. She refuses charity loudly enough that Kolya comes into my office after the call and says, “That woman just called you a romantic idiot.”

“She didn’t say romantic.”

“No, but I wanted to make it worse.”

Zhenya gets a restored stake in the refrigerated business, a legal shield around her trawlers, and a security arrangement she pretends not to appreciate. She also sends Sofiya food twice a month, always too much of it, and once includes a note that says, Eat before your criminal starts making health decisions.

Sofiya reads it aloud at breakfast and looks at me over the paper. “She knows you.”

“I make excellent health decisions.”

“You tried to work three days after being shot.”

“That was a staffing issue.”

“That was a stupidity issue.”

Kolya, passing through with a folder, says, “Medically confirmed.”

I point at the door. “Out.”

He leaves smiling.

Lazlo Varga survives too, though barely at first.

Yuri’s men pull him from a second safe flat outside the city after Maks’s men burn the first one. He arrives in Moscow thinner than he should be, with one broken finger, two bruised ribs, and the expression of a man annoyed to still be alive because now people expect him to answer questions.

Sofiya sits with him for three hours the first time.

I stay in the next room because she asks me to, and because she doesn’t ask for much unless it matters. When she comes out, her face is pale, but her eyes are steady.

“He kept my father’s last note,” she says.

I close the folder in front of me. “What did it say?”

She holds herself still for a second, then hands me the paper.

If Sofiya comes asking, help her. If she doesn’t, stay safe until she does.