Boris meets my gaze. For a second, the avuncular mask slips, revealing something cold and calculating underneath. Then the smile returns, warm and paternal. "Your father would be proud. You're becoming the leader the family needs."
He walks past me. I hear his breathing, steady and controlled, as he exits the room.
I am left with the skyline and the silence.
The penthouse is freezing. I keep the thermostat low—comfort breeds complacency—but tonight the chill feels internal. The Glass Fortress, my mother called it. Before the Town Car. Before the blood on the Kennedy Expressway. She hated the exposure.
So much glass. Nowhere to hide.
Someone tried to kill me. The list of suspects with the intel is short enough to carve onto a bullet.
I prowl the apartment, checking sightlines, furniture placement, shadows. My body moves on instinct, hunting for threats in the negative space. Paranoia is the only reason I'm still upright.
The elevator chimes—soft, polite.
I turn. Maksim steps out. Alone.
"Viktor?"
"With Alexei. He'll talk before the sun comes up."
Maksim crosses the room to his post by the main window. His stillness is absolute, a predator at rest. Six-foot-two of dense muscle, trained to disappear until violence is required.
I pulled him from the recruit pool years ago. The file said he needed structure, that he craved command. The other recruits were loud, hungry dogs barking for scraps. Maksim was silent.
"What are you good at?"I'd asked him.
"Following orders."
Not fighting. Not killing.Obedience.
"You moved before Viktor's hand cleared the table," I say, watching his profile.
Maksim doesn't look at me. His eyes scan the horizon for threats that aren't there. "I saw his grip change."
"Most men wait for the flash of the weapon."
"Waiting is a risk."
I close the distance between us, stepping into his personal space, close enough to count the lashes, close enough to feel the heat radiating off him. He doesn't retreat. He holds his ground because I trained him to stand fast. Retreat is an admission of guilt.
"Boris was watching you," I say softly. "When you broke Viktor. He was studying you."
A flicker in Maksim's jaw. A tightening. "Your uncle doesn't trust me."
"My uncle doesn't trust anything he can't bribe." I search his face for a tell, for a crack in the armor. "He thinks you're a weakness. A dog I let sleep too close to the bed."
Maksim waits. He accepts the judgment. He accepts the scrutiny.
"He might be right," I continue. "You know my schedule, my codes. Which doors lock and which don't. If someone wanted to gut this organization, they'd start with you."
Maksim's breath hitches, minute, almost imperceptible.
"You think I'm the leak."
"No." The silence stretches, heavy and electric. "I think someone wants me to believe you are. Someone is framing the shot so that putting a bullet in you looks like the logical move."
"Who?"
