Page 105 of Bratva Brother’s Bride

Vera makes a sound beside me. “How did you know that?”

“Dmitri was a sentimental fool.” I reach inside the safe, my fingers closing around the single item within: a leather-bound ledger, thick with pages and heavy with secrets.

The leather is cool against my palm as I pull it out. The cover is plain, but the weight of it speaks to the contents within. This is what I’ve been searching for. This is the proof I need.

My hands are steady as I open it. The pages are filled with Dmitri’s cramped handwriting, dates and amounts and names arranged in neat columns that speak of obsessive organization. I flip through, scanning the entries.

Human trafficking. Shipment after shipment, women and children moved through the port like cargo. There are dozens of dates and destinations, payoffs to officials who looked the other way. The scale of it is staggering, hundreds of millions of dollars flowing through Dmitri’s network over the course of years.

My stomach turns, but I force myself to keep reading. This is what I need.

Then I see something else, too.

There are payments to Anton. Regular, substantial payments that coincide perfectly with the dates of my framing. Not just payments but detailed descriptions of services rendered.

Surveillance on my movements. Fabricated evidence planted in my quarters. Witnesses bribed to testify against me.

The entries are meticulous, each one dated and initialed by both Dmitri and Anton. They read like a corporate ledger, all cold efficiency and businesslike precision, as if arranging the destruction of a man’s life was no different from arranging a shipment of contraband.

This is it.

The ammunition I need to destroy Anton and secure my position once and for all.

There, on the final page, written in Dmitri’s hand just days before his death: a plan.

The elimination of Roman Volkonsky.

The words blur before my eyes. I read them again, then a third time, letting the full weight of their meaning sink in. This isn’t just proof of Dmitri’s crimes. This is proof of Anton’s complicity, not just in my framing, but in everything that came after.

Anton wasn’t just Dmitri’s underboss. He was his co-conspirator from the beginning.

Vera reads over my shoulder, her breath warm against my neck. Her hand finds mine, squeezing tight.

“Oh my God,” she says quietly.

I don’t respond. I can’t. The rage that’s been building inside me since I returned from Siberia crystallizes in this moment.

Anton helped Dmitri destroy me. Anton helped Dmitri plan my death.

31

VERA

The ledger sits open on the desk between us. I can’t stop staring at it. Dmitri treated women and children like cargo, moved through ports and across borders like nothing more than inventory. Worse, Anton was part of it all from the beginning.

Roman hasn’t moved since he read that final entry. He stands frozen, his jaw clenched so tight I can see the muscle jumping beneath his skin. His eyes are fixed on the page, but I don’t think he’s seeing it anymore. He’s somewhere else, Siberia, maybe, reliving everything his brother did to put him there.

“Roman.” I reach out and touch his arm. He flinches like I’ve burned him. “Talk to me.”

“He planned it.” His voice is flat, empty. “He not only framed me; he wanted me dead.”

“You’re here now. You survived.”

“I survived because I got lucky.” He pulls away from my touch and begins to pace the office, his movements sharp and agitated. “Those assholes. Dmitri had been planning this for months!”

I watch him, my heart aching. The rage I expect is there, simmering beneath the surface, but there’s something else too. Something that looks a lot like grief.

“They can’t hurt you anymore,” I say. “Dmitri is dead, and Anton⁠—”