Page 76 of Bratva Baby

He stays sprawled on the couch for one more second, enjoying himself, then gets up and reaches for the shirt I lost somewhere in the process. He shakes it out, hands it to me, and turns away while I put it back on. The small courtesy makes butterflies erupt in my stomach.

He’s just letting me gather myself without making a spectacle of it.

When I finish buttoning what matters, I look at the desk and say, “We need Kolya.”

Anton nods once, already reaching for his phone. “He’s close.”

“And bring everything.”

“Everything is a large category.”

I walk to the desk, gather the route notes into piles, and look back at him. “Then let’s start with everything on Helsinki, bonded cold storage, and the flagged declaration from last week.”

He sends the message without another word.

The library looks worse than it did before. Freight summaries shoved aside, a pizza that we ordered at some point peeking out from its box on the sideboard, notes half under the desk, one pen on the floor. I crouch to retrieve it and feel Anton’s gaze between my shoulder blades. That man can make bending over to pick up a pen feel indecent.

“You can help instead of staring,” I mutter.

“I’m helping.”

“You’re absolutely not.”

His laugh follows me as I straighten. Then he does help. He gathers the papers by subject without being asked, hands me the ones from Helsinki first, and drags a second chair over so he’s beside me instead of across from me.

We’re halfway through sorting the pages when Kolya walks in, takes one look at the room, and says, “I see everyone is handling pressure well.”

Anton doesn’t bother looking up. “Sit down.”

Kolya does. He carries a thin folder, a tablet, and the expression of a man who already knows something has broken and wants to know whether it’s the problem or the people.

His eyes flick over me once. Hair a mess. Anton’s shirt. Bare legs under the throw I dragged from the couch. Then they move to the papers and stay there. Professional. Smart.

“What have we got?” Anton says.

Kolya opens the folder. “Helsinki customs kicked up the same flagged declaration again tonight. Correction request came through forty minutes ago. Not a full release, a bonded cold hold with a reclassification attached to an outer company.”

My head comes up. “Which one?”

He turns the page toward us.

I don’t even need the full line. I know the company name the second I see it. “That one,” I say, tapping the page. “That’s the second company from my list.”

Anton looks at me, then back at the file. “You’re sure?”

“Yes.”

Kolya studies me for half a second. “How?”

“It handled refrigerated overflow years ago. Small, boring cargo, low-margin paper, the kind nobody remembers until it starts making the wrong people rich.”

Kolya nods once and keeps going. “The correction request moved through a brokerage relay in St. Petersburg, then bounced to a bonded cold yard outside Moscow.”

“Which yard?” I ask.

He gives me the name.

I shake my head immediately. “No.”