Sworn to the Bratva Capo

The ledgers were sewn into the spines. That was the first mistake. Nessa Glynn found them in a private collection in Hudson, New York, and read them at her kitchen table like a novel, because that is what a rare-books librarian does with a book she isn't supposed to open. Anton Balashov came to take the collection back and found her reading his family's arithmetic aloud. He had a choice. He hired her instead. Six weeks in a locked room. One bottle of a wine neither of them remembers. One night. He was arrested the week she found out. She told no one. She moved to Ithaca, took a job at Cornell, and had a daughter in a hospital with her sister in the room. Fourteen months later, he found her at the circulation desk. The baby on her hip had his exact eyes. He didn't reach for either of them. He asked what she wanted.