Page 13 of The Pakhan’s Bride (Mafia Bosses #3)

A mere matter of four hours later, I'm at the gates of the Southern Customs Hall.

Access should have taken a day, perhaps two, but the right threats make doors open quicker than they otherwise would.

The Soviet architects built the Southern Customs Hall to outlast God and, judging by the smell, the plumbing.

The corridors are stone arteries, every turn a dead end or a new circle of hell.

Even after hours, the lights never go off.

Some bureaucratic doctrine holds that paper is sacred and must be lit at all times, even if nobody reads it.

I shoulder through the first door. It groans like a dying animal.

My men follow, two at a time, eyes forward.

Sokolov runs point, since he's got the best nose for files.

The rest spread out, slipping past guards with all the subtlety of wolves among sheep.

No alarms, no panic. Nobody expects violence from men in suits. That's why it works.

The archive room is a tomb. Shelves sag with folders bound in string, the air heavy with mildew and the ghost of a thousand misfiled bribes.

We bring our own lights. The fluorescents flicker, making every movement jitter in the corner of your eye.

I set up at the main table, clear a spot with the back of my arm, and let Sokolov dump his haul.

He's sweating already. The folders are fresh—blue, not the usual brown—marked with the new stamp.

Southern corridor, priority clearance. The Baranov seal glares up from half the pages.

I snap on gloves. Paper cuts bleed more than you'd think, and I'm not here to leave DNA.

The first manifest is routine—office furniture, computers, water coolers, all ‘official supplies' for the embassy in Batumi.

Then the weight column—six metric tons. Either they're drinking the Black Sea dry or someone's padding the numbers.

The men work fast. I can hear them breaking small locks, shuffling drawers, muttering in the background. Orlov comes over with a handful of USBs and a smirk. "Found these in the head office safe. Passwords written on a sticky note, the idiots."

I plug one in. The machine boots slowly, dying of old age. The files are encrypted, but not well. The emails are between Batumi and Moscow, most in code, some so obvious it's insulting.

Shipment arrived. Everything accounted for. Your friend handled customs like a professional. She'll be rewarded. Signed , B.

B for Baranov. Probably Valentin or one of his daughters.

Either way, it confirms what I already suspect.

The Baranovs are building something. The emails reference multiple southern ports—Sochi, Burgas, Varna.

Ports with gaps in oversight and friendly hands in customs. I open another file.

It's a manifest disguised as an import tax ledger, but the math doesn't add up.

Values are inflated, items described too vaguely.

Line after line reads like a cover operation.

Satellite phones. Reinforced steel plating.

Military-grade adhesives. Gear you don't move unless you're building bunkers or outfitting cells.

Sokolov leans over. "Looks like infrastructure. Not weapons, not drugs."

"Bases," I say. "Or command points."

He nods slowly. "Someone's setting up a skeleton network. Secure zones. Possibly fallback locations."

I sit back, rubbing my jaw. "Who's funding it?"

Antonov enters from the other side of the room. He's carrying a thick folder, untouched by mold or decay. "Boss. Found this at the bottom of the shred bin. Looks like it was meant to disappear."

I open it. Offshore ledgers. Cyprus. Malta.

Four shelf companies masking the same set of accounts.

Each one wires to a Batumi firm that doesn't exist. The last page is a list of cargo routes.

Astra Line. Black Sea to Adriatic. Across the top is a printed clearance issued under a diplomatic seal.

"Look at this," I mutter. "They're moving through state-protected lanes.

No inspections, no taxes, no questions."

Sokolov leans closer. "That's how they're moving so cleanly."

"And we've been blind," I say.

I flip back to the Istanbul shipment. Baranov's signature stares up at me from the bottom corner, next to a printed customs number. "His children must be involved," I muse. "Valentin's been training his young."

"You sure about that?" Sokolov asks doubtfully. "They're girls."

"And?" I look askance at him, my brows knit in a frown. "Women can be far more dangerous than men, especially since they're not thinking with their cocks." That shuts him up. "This many routes, this many names, this much protection—no chance Valentin pulled this off alone."

When the Bratva fractured after the fall of the Soviet Union, the ones who survived were the ones who adapted.

The old Vory codes meant nothing once the borders opened and the west came calling.

Valentin clung to the idea that lineage was enough, that wealth and fear could hold ground indefinitely.

But the new power structure needed liquidity, not just legacy.

When the oil contracts passed him over, when his last three votes on regional control ended in abstentions, the message was clear.

The others saw it too. The Baranovs still had money, yes, and silence bought with it, but they had no seat at the table, no sway in the corridors that mattered.

Now they are relics propped up by offshore accounts and a few loyal captains too old to defect. And yet…

What's spread out in front of me isn't petty smuggling.

It's structure. Port clearances, discreet holdings in three transit cities, flagged transfers that match the old Vory routes.

It reeks of foundation, not improvisation.

And if they're laying down roots again, then they're not just rebuilding influence but also declaring intent.

A second power center cannot exist while I ascend.

The old order thrived on fragmentation, but I intend to unify, to centralize.

There is no room for nostalgia or parallel empires.

If the Baranovs are moving beneath my feet, then I must answer before the council begins to whisper that the wolves are returning.

The path to becoming Pakhan isn't granted by blood or strength alone. It's cleared by eliminating what came before.