Page 8 of Bratva Baby

“Do you remember what your father used to say?” he asks.

I don’t answer. Maks does it for me. “Numbers only become dangerous when the wrong person starts asking what they mean.”

He’s quoting him almost perfectly, I’ll give him that.

I force my face to stay still. “He also said numbers become dangerous when people start killing to protect them.”

His eyes narrow to slits. A vein throbs in his temple. “Careful.”

“With what?”

“With how much intelligence you claim to have.”

I laugh. “Claim?”

“Yes,” he says. “There’s a difference between being useful and being informed, Sofiya, and sometimes, women raised in rooms like this often mistake family for permission.”

I keep my voice even. “Then stop speaking to me as if I’m stupid.”

He snorts. “No. I think you forgot the difference between inquiry and nosiness.”

I glance at the monitor. “A route that goes bad usually smells before it breaks.”

He comes around the desk and stops beside me, eyes on the screen. “Go on, Sofiya. Tell me what you think you found.”

I move away from the desk toward the wall where an old family photograph hangs in a silver frame. I’m barely two in it, round-cheeked and solemn in white. Maks stands beside his father, all teeth and polish even then. I stop there for a beat, then circle back and keep the desk between us.

“I found irregular movement through a closed series,” I say, resting my fingertips on the edge. “A payment structure that didn’t reconcile cleanly. I checked whether somebody was skimming.”

“Somebody,” Maks repeats. He reaches for the decanter and pours himself two fingers of whiskey.

I watch the amber liquid settle in the cut glass.

“You want names?”

“I want to know how much of my dead uncle’s habits got passed on before he died.”

Something in me goes cold, but I don’t let it reach my face. If Maks wants fear, he can work harder for it.

He pushes off the cabinet and comes back toward the desk, whiskey glass in hand. “The men who built this house did things softer men would’ve called unforgivable. They took what they needed and paid what it cost. Peace only mattered when it made the family stronger.”

A cold hand closes around my heart. Conviction in a man like Maks is worse than greed. I keep still and wait.

“Say something.” Maks strikes the desk with the flat of his hand.

I stare at him. “And you think Grigor forgot that?”

“I think Grigor got comfortable.”

He sets the glass beside my bracelet. “He mistakes stability for power, clean business for control. Absence of open blood for victory.”

I shake my head. Maybe I’ll be able to talk some sense into this asshole. “Maks, you’re trying to reopen the Reznikov feud. Nothing good can come of this!”

His eyes go narrow. “I’m saying the truce weakened us.”

My brows knit together as I try to make him see reason. “The truce kept the ports from turning into a graveyard.”

“The truce turned this family into accountants.”