The streets outside are quiet, but the Bratva compound is anything but.

The iron gate groans open like it’s warning you back, but you walk in without flinching. You’ve heard screams behind these walls. You’ve helped erase them. The night air stinks of smoke and gasoline—someone burned something in the courtyard again. You don’t ask what.

Inside, the floors are cold concrete, still streaked from last week’s cleanup. Men you used to flinch around barely look at you now. You’re not one of them. But you’re not just a lawyer anymore, either. You’re something else. Something useful.

You pass a room where a man’s shouting in Russian, another where laughter sounds wrong—too sharp, too loud. Then, finally, you reach the main office.

Makarov, the pakhan's office door is open. You step in and freeze.

He’s wiping his hands with a stained rag. On the floor, a man is groaning, barely conscious, face ruined. Blood’s pooling slow and steady beneath the chair he’s tied to.

Makarov doesn’t look up at first.

“Tell me,” he says, voice flat, “who gave you permission to speak for me.”

You don’t answer.

He finally looks up, eyes sharp enough to cut.

“I saw the interview. The quote you gave the press. Clever. Clean. Just vague enough to sound innocent. You think trying to save my name gives you power to speak things without consulting me first?"

He tosses the rag on the desk. It lands on your latest legal file. There’s no rage in his tone. Just something colder. Disappointment. Calculation.

“I built this empire on silence and fear. You don't get to trade that in for applause or trying to make me seem like the hero."