"And your… husband."
I smirk at the ceiling. "Husband adjacent."
"Is he a problem I must solve or a weapon I can steal?"
"You don’t steal weapons," I say. "You pick them up and see if the balance sings." I hesitate, then give him the truth he pays me for. "He’s sharper than his reputation. Clean when he can be, dirty when he has to be. He read my lie and decided to keep it alive because it was useful. That makes him dangerous, but it also makes him predictable."
"Careful, Oksana."
"I’m always careful."
He snorts, the fond, annoyed kind onlySolnyshkoand I ever get to hear. "You jump out of planes without checking the ground for knives."
"That was once."
"That was twice."
"Semantics." I shift, and nausea and heat climb my throat. I breathe through it. "What do you want me to do?"
"For now?" he says. "Play wife. Learn the house. Count the brothers and their teeth. Help Stephano get Nico out. The Conti boy might be useful to us. He'll circle. Let him. When he lands, leash him or cut him loose so he runswhere I want."
"And the Venezuelans?"
"Our best bet to get to them is through the Italians."
A knock bangs the glass and slides the door an inch before the latch catches. I flinch on instinct, fingers finding the bed’s remote like it’s a trigger. The nurse peeks in, apologetic. "Sorry. Just your antibiotics, Ms.—" Her eyes dart to the clipboard. "Mrs.—"
"Later," I say in English, sweet as a scalpel. "Ten minutes."
She retreats. I watch the suits watch her, then me, then each other.
"Time’s up," I tell Grigori.
"One more thing," he says. "Solnyshko wants to see you."
A laugh punches out of me before I can stop it. "Your little sun in a room full of Italians? She’d blind them."
"That’s the point. She misses you."
I swallow that ache. "Tell her I’m not worth the airfare."
"I won’t," he says. "Because it isn’t true."
My chest tightens in a way the bullet didn’t manage. "Lyublyu,bratok." I love you, brother.
"I know," he says, then ends the call before the tenderness can become a weakness that needs killing.
I slide the phone under my pillow and close my eyes until the pulse in my wound stops trying to climb out. When Iopen them, the suits are joined by a third shape—taller, broader, a gravity that the hallway tilts toward without permission.
Him.
He fills the doorway without touching it. The nurse slips past him with the glare of a woman who wants to live forever. He doesn’t look at her. He looks at me like I’m a problem he decided to enjoy.
"You were supposed to be resting," he chides.
"I was. You are late." I point at the clock even though I have no idea what time he said he’d be back. "Your guards breathe too loud."
His mouth curves, a sin that almost looks like a smile. "Get used to it."
