Page 129 of Cruel Juliet

PETYR

By the time the clock strikes midnight, I’m still in my office.

I’m at my desk, sleeves rolled up, a half-empty glass of whiskey beside me. Dinnertime has come and gone, but I couldn’t risk tearing myself from this. I need all of my attention if I’m going to make sense of it.

The books spread out before me look fine at first glance. Numbers neatly aligned, expenses logged.

But they’renotright. I can feel it in my gut.

Money’s missing.

I drag a hand through my hair, lean back in the chair, and squint at the ledger like it might confess if I glare hard enough. Which of course it doesn’t. People are easier to draw answers from, at least how I do it.

Truth is, I’m not built for this kind of work. Dimitri was always the one with the head for numbers. He could read a balance sheet like other people read faces. Me? I’m the kind of man who prefers a simpler method. You lie? I hit you until you stop lying.

But since Dimitri’s still recovering and the accountants are all conveniently too scared to be honest with me, it falls on my shoulders to find out who’s skimming off the top.

It’s the club that’s the problem. Always the fucking club. Easy to move money through, easy to make it disappear. Cash comes in by the truckload—drinks, tips, VIP tables—and half of it never reaches the books.

I flip another page. My eyes narrow on the column of the liquor sales.

There.

Someone’s been shaving profits off that part, too. Not enough to trip alarms, but over time, it adds up. A few thousand here, a few thousand there. Nice and subtle. Too subtle for most of my men.

Which means whoever’s doing it isn’t some grunt. It’s someone who knows the system. Someone I trusted.

Someone like Lev.

My jaw tightens. Lev is gone, but clearly, he didn’t take all the rot with him.

So it falls to me to clean house. Again.

I close the ledger and stare out the window instead. The night air presses against the glass. Somewhere upstairs, I can hear the faint sound of movement. Soft footsteps, then silence again.

Sima.

She’s supposed to be asleep. Or at least pretending to be. But even when she’s quiet, I can still feel her in this house, a low current under my skin.

I rub the back of my neck and go back to the papers. Work first. The rest will have to wait.

I’ve been staring at the same two columns for an hour, chasing a culprit I can feel but can’t see. Even when I catch the discrepancies, it’s hard to connect them to someone specific, and I keep having second thoughts about the numbers. Which means checking and re-checking, over and over again, until my eyes are crossing.

I drag a hand down my face and look at the ledger again. Dimitri would have caught it by now. Hell, he probably would have fixed it before I even noticed. He had patience for this kind of shit.

It’s moments like this that I badly wish he were here. Back home, where he belongs.

The guilt twists deeper the longer I sit here. Lilia’s bedtime came and went hours ago. I told myself I’d finish one last page before going up, but the pages just keep stacking, too connected to each other to cut off the work midway.

I picture her tiny hands on the crib rail. Her wide eyes searching for me. I should be with my family right now.

But every time I think about closing this book, I see my father’s face. His disappointment.

Every second I let this go on, I’m letting someone disrespect our Bratva. The Gubarev name depends on me now. If I want to show Dimitri he can take a step back without worrying, I need to prove our Bratva will be in good hands with me.

The soft click of the door cuts through my thoughts. “Hey. Mind if I come in?”

It’s Sima. Instinctively, my muscles relax. “Of course not. You’re a sight for sore eyes.”