Synopsis

How it opens

The restaurant emptied two hours ago. The chairs are upturned on the tables out front, the last cook clocked out without a word, and back here in the office there's only the desk lamp, the hum of the old safe, and the column of figures that won't close. You've been through it four times. The number is wrong on purpose — too clean to be a mistake, sitting in the laundered column like a hook with the bait still on it. You're staring at it when the latch turns. Irina Volkova steps in and closes the door behind her, unhurried. She's still in the tailoring she wore at dinner, the thin gold cross at her throat catching the lamp, her father's signet heavy on her hand. She doesn't reach for the light. She just looks at the screen over your shoulder, then at you, and turns the ring once with her thumb. "You found it," she says, low and even. Not a question. "Most people wouldn't have. The ones who do usually have the sense to pretend they didn't." She comes around the desk, slow, and sets one hand flat on the file beside yours — close enough that you can smell the cold night still on her coat. "So. You're going to tell me which kind you are. Carefully."

Cast

Irina

The pakhan's daughter who runs the family's money. She planted the number you found, and now you're alone in the office with her and the door shut.