Page 20 of The Mafia King's Baby

Dad always said to trust my gut when something didn’t feel right. “Information that doesn’t exist is still information,” he’d say when teaching me about research and verification. “Sometimes what’s missing tells you more than what’s present.”

I close the laptop and head upstairs to clean the guest room. The practical task should help clear my head and restore normal routine to a space that’s been transformed by intimate memory.

The bed is easy to remake with fresh linens. I vacuum the carpet, dust the surfaces, and replace the flowers on the dresser with a new arrangement from my garden. Gradually, the room returns to its original state, ready for the next guest who might book it.

I save the bedside table for last, opening the drawer to see if he left any comments in the leather-bound notebook and quality pen I provide for guests who want to jot down thoughts or recommendations during their stay.

A notebook is still there, but it’s not the one I placed in the drawer.

I pull out the leather-bound journal, immediately noticing that it feels different in my hands. Heavier and more worn, withcreases and marks that suggest frequent use. When I open it, instead of blank pages waiting for guest observations about their Lake Tahoe experience, I find page after page of dense handwriting in a script I can’t entirely decipher.

Numbers, letters, names I don’t recognize arranged in columns and lists that look like some kind of code or accounting system. Entries like “VK—50k—03/15” and “Judge Morrison—quarterly—confirmed” alongside series of numbers that could be account references or transaction codes.

I flip through several pages, trying to make sense of the information. Some entries are in English, and some in what might be Russian based on the Cyrillic characters, but that’s a wild guess mostly based on his faint Eastern European accent. There are dates going back six years, with numbers ranging from thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars, and names that sound both American and Eastern European.

This isn’t a guest notebook. This is someone’s private record of...something. Financial transactions, maybe, though the cryptic notations and multiple languages suggest something more complex than standard business accounting. Aleks must have switched the notebooks by mistake, taking mine while leaving his behind in the drawer. I guess it was an easy error to make when packing quickly in dim morning light, especially since both notebooks are similar in size and binding.

As I study the pages more carefully, noting the meticulous organization and obviously sensitive nature of the information, I realize this wasn’t a minor mistake. These records represent something important, perhaps valuable enough that their owner would want them within arm’s reach even during a supposedly routine overnight stay.

What kind of businessman keeps encrypted financial records in multiple languages in a notebook instead of a computer? What kind of legitimate business requires such elaborate documentation of payments and relationships? There aren’t any dollar signs, but I’m sure things like ‘50k’ reference fifty thousand dollars.

I close the notebook and sit on the edge of the freshly made bed, staring at the leather cover as though it might contain answers to questions I haven’t even thought to ask yet. Who is Aleks Sokolov, really? What kind of world is he involved in that requires such careful record-keeping of what appears to be significant financial transactions?

More importantly, what does it mean that he left these records behind in my house?

I slip the notebook back into the drawer and finish cleaning the room, but my mind keeps returning to the pages of coded information. Every instinct Dad taught me about recognizing when situations don’t add up is screaming that I’ve stumbled into something far more complicated than a simple case of mistaken identity or forgotten belongings.

The man who made me feel safe enough to break my own rules about keeping distance from guests, who shared vulnerable stories about his dead brother and made me believe in the possibility of genuine connection, apparently carries secrets that require encryption and multiple languages to protect.

As I turn off the lights in the guest room and head back downstairs, I worry that last night changed more than just my perspective on taking romantic risks. It opened a door to questions I’m not sure I want answered, and complications I’m definitely not equipped to handle.

I settle into my living room with a cup of tea and try to focus on job search emails, but the notebook upstairs seems to call to me like a puzzle begging to be solved.

Who are you really, Aleks Sokolov? And what have you gotten me involved in?

8

Yefrem

The Nevada safe house sits twenty miles outside Reno, a nondescript ranch-style building surrounded by scrub brush and rocky terrain that stretches to the horizon in every direction. It’s the kind of place where a man can disappear completely, and the nearest neighbor is far enough away that gunshots would sound like distant thunder, if they were heard at all.

I should feel relief being here. The location is secure, unknown to anyone except Leonid and me, and equipped with everything necessary for extended stays and rapid departures, including clean water, non-perishable food, multiple vehicles with different license plates, and enough ammunition to hold off a small army if necessary.

Instead, I feel restless, distracted by thoughts that have no place in operational planning. Three hours have passed since I arrived, and instead of establishing communication protocols or mapping escape routes, I keep standing at windows staring backtoward the Sierra Nevada mountains that hide Lake Tahoe from view.

Celia is seventy miles away, probably going about her normal routine without any idea that she spent the night with a man whose enemies could use her as leverage against him. The thought sits in my chest like a physical mass, making it difficult to focus on the tactical considerations that should be consuming my attention.

Lang is still hunting me, desperate to get his hands on the notebook that documents my organization’s activities. That ledger contains every detail of our corruption network. Lang claims he wants it as evidence to bring down ourbratva, but I suspect his real intention is to use that information to take over our empire after eliminating me.

The notebook represents both my greatest vulnerability and my only real protection. If Lang gets it, he’ll have everything he needs to dismantle our organization and seize control of our operations, but as long as it remains in my possession, he has to be careful about how he moves against me—destroying the evidence along with me would defeat his ultimate purpose.

Instead of strategizing about how to keep the notebook away from Lang while using it to maintain my position, I’m thinking about sage green walls and the way Celia’s hair spread across her pillow in the predawn light. Instead of calculating his likely next moves to acquire our operational records, I’m remembering the trust in her voice when she invited me to stay for wine and conversation during the power outage.

I force myself to unpack, laying out my clothes and equipment. The weapons are cleaned and secured, the electronics arecharged and tested, and the escape routes are memorized and contingencies planned.

The notebook is the last item I retrieve. I reach into the interior pocket of my travel bag where it should be waiting, fingers expecting to encounter familiar worn leather and the weight of secrets that could bring down dozens of lives if they fell into the wrong hands. Instead, I pull out a pristine leather journal with blank pages and a small embossed logo in the corner that reads “Welcome to Lake Tahoe—Create Beautiful Memories.”

The guest notebook from Celia’s bedside table.

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