Page 79 of Sexting the Pakhan

“Try again.”

“I don’t know,” he says, harder this time. “I didn’t move the book. I didn’t pay those idiots. I didn’t send men into a public library to shoot at you.”

Pavel turns the laptop toward me. “The payment came through Varn Transport.”

Anton laughs once. “Half the city uses Varn.”

“You own thirty percent through your cousin,” Pavel says.

Anton’s eyes cut to him. “My cousin owns thirty percent. I don’t.”

Stepan puts a folder on the desk. “Your cousin also left town yesterday.”

For the first time, Anton goes quiet.

I look at him. “You see the problem.”

“I see someone setting me up,” he spits.

“Who?”

“I don’t know.”

“That answer gets boring.”

“It’s the truth.”

Dima shifts near the door.

Anton notices, then looks back at me. “If I were the mole, would I still be sitting in the city? Would I leave accounts close enough for your dogs to sniff out? Think, Ruslan.”

“I am.”

Anton laughs, but there’s no confidence in it. “No, you’re not. You already decided.”

“You made it easy.”

“I didn’t do this,” he says.

“Why did your cousin leave the city?” Dima asks.

“I don’t know,” he snaps. “He panicked.”

“Because?”

“Because men started asking questions.”

“Whose men?”

He looks at Stepan, then at Pavel, then at me. “Yours. They’re just looking for a scapegoat to pin the blame on because they were too stupid to protect you.”

“I want you to say the truth.”

“The truth is someone is feeding you just enough to put me in this chair.”

Stepan says, “Convenient.”

Anton turns on him. “You think I’m stupid enough to use a company tied to my own family?”