Page 82 of Bratva Baby

“Call you back,” I say.

The truck rolls out.

We let it get ahead of us, then pick it up two cars back. One of ours takes the wider line. Another falls in from a side street. Nobody rushes. Nobody turns lights on. Nobody gets cute.

The truck cuts west, then south, then into an older industrial strip near the water where archive companies, print services, and quiet storage businesses rent cheap space and keep their heads down.

Kolya checks the map. “Short run.”

“Yes.”

If they were only moving cold product, they could use cleaner routes and longer cover. A short run means the cargo itself matters less than the handoff.

The truck slows outside a low records building with one loading dock and a side entrance under a metal awning. There isn’t much signage out front, just a plain company plate with a bland archive name meant to make people yawn and keep walking.

“Of course,” I mutter.

Kolya sees it too. “You were right about the second stop.”

“No,” I say, watching the dock. “She was.”

The truck stops. The driver gets out, and the man in the dark coat comes through the side door before the driver even reaches the latch. He’s carrying keys, not paperwork, and he moves like he expects the night to go his way.

I raise a hand to stop Kolya from moving too soon. “Wait.”

We watch the rear doors open.

The first thing that comes down is a banker’s carton. Then another. Then a third. All paper.

Not office junk either. Real freight records. Transfer sheets, vendor files, payment approvals, warehouse logs, and backup reconciliations. The kind of paperwork that tells the full story after a load moves—what company touched it, who signed for it, where it was reassigned, and where the money went next.

That’s when I know this isn’t just a shipment run. Maks is moving the records that explain how his hidden operation works. If he gets them somewhere safe or burns them, proof gets a lot harder to build.

I call Sofiya again.

She answers on the first ring. “Tell me.”

“They’re unloading records.”

That gets an immediate reaction. “Then it’s a sweep.”

I keep my eyes on the dock. “Say it plain.”

“Think transfer sheets, reassignment forms, backup ledgers, vendor approvals, warehouse logs, payment summaries,” she says. “Anything that shows which shell company touched the load, who approved the change, and how the shipment got a new identity after the first clearance.”

Good. Clear. Useful.

I watch another carton come down. “One of the labels has initials and a number. L.V. Fourteen.”

Sofiya goes quiet for a second, then says, “That could be Varga.”

Kolya turns toward me. “How?”

I keep watching the dock while I answer for both of us. “Explain.”

Her voice goes taut, and I can hear her moving around on the other end, probably pulling old details back into place. “Varga used to reconcile freight records for my father and a few other men in that world. He matched shipment papers to payment trails, checked where loads got reassigned, and kept backup copies of the things that mattered when the official books got too clean.”

Kolya’s expression changes. “Backup copies.”