Page 69 of Deviant Need

We’re at the port he controls, the one on Halperin Terminal.

Something went wrong with one of the crates from the Balkans, and he needed me to track them. Except I got distracted and ended up looking into that old woman in Germany instead. Turned out to be another dead end. Literally. She’s been dead for years.

So I’m back at square one with nothing to show for it except wasted time and more questions I can’t answer. I’m so confused trying to figure everything out on my own now. The thing is, I think Germany has the answers somewhere. Or something connected to it does. I don’t really know.

It’s not that I don’t think of the Avrorins as my family. I’m not trying to be selfish by looking into this. I just have so many questions that won’t leave me alone. I want to know about my scars, where they came from, what happened before Roman brought me home.

I love Lina so much. She’s incredible and strong, always keeps us in line and takes care of all of us. When I fell off my bike once while out with Alexei, he had to carry me back for over an hour, and we left our bikes behind on the trail. Lina saw us coming through the gates and ran to meet us, brought us inside, and sat us down with ice cream while she patched up my knees.

She even started leaving vacuum-sealed cookies in the hollow of our tree after she realized Mikhail and I kept sneaking out there. I think she must have followed us one day to figure out where we were going.

Whenever Roman had his work trips, we’d always have movie nights as a family. Lina’s the one who got us all hooked on Uno because she used to play it when she was young, and then we all became obsessed with it. Which also led to everyone fighting and shouting and screaming at each other over cards. I think she regretted showing us that game pretty quickly after seeing how competitive we all got.

Lev shoots me a look, the kind that says he knows I’m just sitting around doing nothing, and I throw up my hands in frustration before flipping him off. He glares at me harder but keeps his mouth shut. If I could talk, I would tell him exactly where he can shove his fucking shipping manifests and his attitude problem.

“Figure it out,” he says, shaking his head. “I don’t care what you have to do. Father’s already up my ass about Baltimore and now this. I need something to go right. Just one thing.” He turns and walks away, phone already pressed to his ear, barking orders at whoever picked up in that same clipped, furious tone.

My eyes drop to the screen, and I pull up the shipping manifests, trying to make sense of the complete mess in front of me. It takes forever to get through everything, cross-referencing dates and weights and border checkpoints, but I think I found the problem buried in there. Now I just have to figure out how to explain it to Lev.

This is just as frustrating for me as it is for everyone else. More frustrating, actually, because I can see the solution right there in my head and I physically cannot get the words out to share it. My throat closes up completely when I try to speak to anyone who isn’t Mikhail. The words are there, perfectly clear, but nothing comes out.

On the rare chance I can force out one letter or maybe a single word, it stutters so badly it takes up to a minute, and by then the other person has already given up on me. My mouth won’t cooperate, and my voice shuts down entirely.

It’s humiliating. People treat me like I’m stupid, like there’s something wrong with my brain, when really the problem is I just can’t force the words past whatever block exists between my thoughts and my voice. I have the answer, but I can’t make anyone hear it.

“Well?”

Handing him the laptop, he stares at it, scrolling through my highlighted sections. “I don’t know what I’m looking at, Daniil.”

He shoves the laptop back into my hands and glares at me. God, is he stupid? Just look at the screen. It shows you exactly what you need to know. The timestamps, the weight differences, the border delays. It’s all there.

“Just tell me. It’s not that hard to talk, seriously. I need to know right now. Father is going to murder me.”

Maybe if you weren’t such a stressed-out asshole constantly, you’d be able to think straight for five seconds and see what’s right in front of your face instead of complicating everything.

“What did you just say to him?” Mikhail’s voice cuts through the tension.

He’s on him in seconds, grabbing Lev and slamming him against the nearest shipping container. His hand wraps around his throat, squeezing hard enough to make him claw at the grip. “Don’t fucking talk to him that way or I will end you.” He shoves him away, and Lev stumbles backward.

Mikhail still won’t look at me. My stomach twists into knots watching him keep his gaze anywhere but on me.

Lev gestures toward me, rubbing his throat. “He can’t tell me what went wrong with the shipping, and I need to know now. That’s why I called you here.”

Mikhail curses under his breath and takes my laptop, scrolling through the spreadsheets and all my highlights.

His brows pull together as he scans the data, jaw tight. Then he sighs. “Someone skimmed at the Balkan border. The manifests don’t line up. The delay shows weight differences from the pauses in the system checkpoints. That’s why there’s a holdup.”

Lev presses his hands to his head. “It’s money for the club event. Someone stole from us?”

“Yeah, that’s what it looks like.” Mikhail rubs his jaw, the motion irritated. “This is going to mess things up. We were depending on that cash to clean.”

He’s talking about the big event he’s been planning for months, the one where they’ll wash everything through the club’s systems. It’s not for another month and a half, but it’s going to be massive. High-profile clients, huge amounts moving through in one night. Father’s been breathing down his neck about it.

“I know. That’s why I’m worried. This is bad, Mik.”

Mikhail shrugs. “We can get more from the other families under us. Don’t worry about it. Just let me talk to him, and I’ll sort this out.” He pushes the laptop into Lev’s hands and turns to leave.

I can’t stop myself from staring after him, disbelief flooding through me. He didn’t even look at me. My gaze drops to the floor, and I exhale slowly, the ache in my chest spreading.