A Black Market Deal That Changed Everything

When 19-year-old Vera started selling contraband through a Moscow tea shop, she never imagined meeting someone like Mikhail. The charming Georgian businessman offered her a dangerous proposition: smuggling caviar and champagne for substantial payment, plus an invitation to his Black Sea home during the May Day holiday. (Trust no one was Vera's survival rule, but something about Mikhail's gentleness made her hesitate.)

From the moment she boarded that private train in 1990, nothing made sense. Why would this mysterious figure possess such wealth in communist Russia? At his seaside mansion, surrounded by Fabergé eggs and priceless artifacts from across Soviet republics, Mikhail compared Vera to Saint Shushanik and revealed his true purpose—he needed someone brave enough to pre ...