Flip the table and divide the family property! Take his wife and daughter into the mountains and eat

Belikov completely ignored him.

The gun was still firmly pointed at Ivanov, but his eyes went over Ivanov's shoulder, slowly scanning the snowfield, the dark forest, and the undulating hills in the distance.

The wind blew in from the woods, swirling snowflakes across the ground. There was nothing outside except Ivanov.

But the more this is the case, the less people dare to relax.

After a long while, Belikov finally spoke, his face grim and his voice hoarse:

"Don't joke with me, Ivanov. You're not a fool, and neither am I. You know very well that the first thing I'll do when I get out is to skin you alive."

He paused for a moment, then pressed his index finger down the trigger a little further.

"At a time like this, you actually dare to come to my door. If your next sentence doesn't give me a satisfactory answer—"

"I'll shoot right now."

The room was so quiet that only the sound of the wind could be heard.

Nikolai and Gerasimov stared intently at Ivanov in the snow, as if he were a dead man who had already stepped into a trap.

Ivanov's Adam's apple bobbed, his smile grew even more strained, and he forced a smile as he said:

"Belikov, I'm here to ease the tension between us. There's actually a small misunderstanding between us—"

"A small misunderstanding?"

Belikov's face tightened instantly, and the next second he blurted out a curse:

"Fuck you!"

"You told Sergei Petrovich to kill us all inside, and that was a misunderstanding?!"

Ivanov's face immediately turned extremely ugly.

The forced smile completely crumbled, and his gray-blue eyes darkened.

"That bastard... he even told you this?"

"I said it!"

Nikolai exploded, his eyes turning red, and pointed at Ivanov, cursing:

"That whore-like bastard, he'll do anything for whoever pays him! He took your money first, and then he came to us saying he'd rather live—give us three times the amount! If we're short even a penny, we're all dead inside!"

He became increasingly agitated as he spoke, and the veins on his neck bulged out.

"Ivanov! Because of you, you bastard, we emptied our savings! We sold everything we could, mortgaged everything we could, even threw in our last bit of money to save our lives, just to crawl out of that hell!"

Gerasimov gritted his teeth, his face contorted in a ferocious grimace.

"You think you can erase the past few years with just one misunderstanding?"

He took a half step forward, his eyes filled with hatred.

"You're dead today. Not just you. I'll go after everyone in your family, one by one. Your wife, your mother—"

He paused for a moment, then a slow smile spread across his face.

"And your son, I will remember that too."

As soon as he said that, Ivanov's face turned completely cold in the snow. He stared at Gerasimov, and the fake smile in his gray-blue eyes vanished instantly, leaving only a heavy aura of death.

"Gerasimov, if I were you, I would never have involved my family."

Ivanov's voice was very soft, but it was like a thin icicle that pierced the ears of the people in the room through the wind and snow.

Gerasimov paused for a moment, then, as if he had heard the funniest joke, he took a sudden step forward, brandishing his short shotgun arrogantly, and raised his voice, filled with blatant mockery:

"What's wrong? Scared? You fat pig who only dares to scheme in the shadows, now you know how to mention 'family'?"

He turned to look at Nikolai, laughing hysterically: "Look at him! Belikov, that old fox has wet his pants! He's begging me! He's begging me to spare his son!"

Gerasimov turned around, his eyes filled with morbid excitement, and spat at Ivanov: "I'm not only going to mess with them, I'm going to do it right in front of you..."

Ivanov ignored his shouts and just stared at him expressionlessly, as if he were looking at a dead man.

After Gerasimov had finished venting his anger, he spoke slowly and deliberately:

"Gerasimov, your wife's name is Lyudmila. She lives on that old street south of Omsk, near a small shop that sells black bread."

"Your mother broke her leg last winter and still uses crutches."

"Your youngest son, seven years old, has a scar on his right eyebrow."

The maniacal laughter inside the room abruptly stopped.

Gerasimov's sinister smile froze on his face as if it had been scraped away by a steel knife.

Nikolai, who was standing next to Ivanov, suddenly turned his head to look at him, and his expression changed instantly.

Ivanov didn't stop; his gaze slowly shifted back to Nikolai's face.

"And you, Nikolai."

"Your sister is in Tomsk."

"Your younger brother just came back from the mine a while ago."

Only then did he raise his eyes and look at Belikov.

"As for you, Belikov—I haven't been able to find your family yet. But you have a mentor, if I remember correctly?"

The air in the room suddenly felt even colder.

The three men stared intently at Ivanov like ferocious beasts whose vital organs had been struck, their eyes seeming as if they wished they could tear him apart piece by piece on the spot.

Ivanov stood in the snow, his hand still raised, but his voice was steady:

"Don't look at me like that. You've been inside for so long, and I haven't touched them."

"I am a person of principle."

"As long as you don't touch my family and only target me—I promise, that won't happen."

The wind blew in from the woods, swirling snowflakes around the doorway.

No one inside the room responded.

Belikov stared at Ivanov, his teeth clenching tighter and tighter, his cheeks bulging out.

After a long while, he finally managed to squeeze out a sentence through gritted teeth:

What do you want?

"Peace."

After Ivanov finished speaking, he reached into his pocket, pulled out a heavy little cloth bag, and with a flick of his wrist, tossed it into the doorway.

The bag rolled twice on the ground and stopped at Belikov's feet.

"There are three pieces of gold here."

"It's not just about the gold. From now on, you'll be in charge of the trade in medicine on the border. You can follow my lead."

Nikolai and Gerasimov were both taken aback, and even the fat on Belikov's face twitched slightly.

He glanced down at the cloth bag at his feet, then looked up, his eyes growing even more intense.

"What did you say?"

This time, Ivanov didn't laugh or beat around the bush; he just stared at Belikov.

"I'm telling you, from now on, I'll let you into the pharmaceutical business on the border. I'll provide the people, the locations, and the roads. Haven't you always wanted a stable path to start over? Now, I'll give it to you."

Belikov narrowed his eyes; although he didn't push the gun forward any further, he didn't lower it either.

"What do you want to do, Ivanov?"

"I don't believe someone like you would suddenly become generous."

"A person like you would rather spend several times more money to have someone kill us than stand here bowing your head and talking about peace."

Ivanov remained silent for a long time before speaking:

"I need medicine."

"Now."

Nikolai and Gerasimov exchanged a glance.

They had previously thought that Ivanov was taking such a big risk tonight, bringing gold and giving up the border medicine trade, in order to put an end to this old debt.

But it wasn't until this moment that they suddenly realized—everything before was just a prelude; what he really wanted tonight, from beginning to end, was only this batch of medicine.

The firewood in the brazier popped with a "crack".

Belikov stared intently at Ivanov in the snow for a long while before suddenly laughing: "You took such a huge risk, coming to see us alone, paying such a high price, giving up the medicine trade on the border... Ivanov, who exactly are you trying to save?"

Ivanov stood in the snow, the wind gently swaying the hem of his coat.

He stared at Belikov, his grey-blue eyes cold and heavy: "Belikov, this is my business. Just tell me, will you give me this batch of medicine or not?"

Belikov didn't ask any further questions, but simply pointed to the prescription on the threshold with the muzzle of his gun: "Pick it up."

Nikolai immediately bent down, picked up the paper, and handed it to him.

"How's it going?" Ivanov stared at him. "You have the goods, right?"

Belikov did not answer.

He held the paper, looked at it for a long time, and then slowly raised his head, staring at Ivanov in the snow, his voice hoarse: "Yes."

Ivanov's eyes darkened, as if he had finally found a glimmer of hope: "Then, shall we make a deal?"

As he spoke, he stretched out his hand.

The room fell silent immediately.

Belikov stared at his hand for a long time, then slowly raised his eyes and coldly uttered a single word: "No."

As he finished speaking, he rubbed his hands together.

"Sizzle—"

The prescription was torn in half right in front of Ivanov.

Then another, and another. The thin sheet of paper was torn into several pieces in the blink of an eye. The scraps of paper drifted through his fingers, landed on the threshold, and, soaked by the snow, immediately became a wet blob.

Ivanov's outstretched hand froze in mid-air.

Belikov then raised his head, stared at him, and said in a cold, hard voice, "I only said I had it, not that I was going to give it to you."