I close my eyes. Breathe. "What do you need?"
"A meeting. Ten o'clock. We need to get ahead of this before it becomes a problem."
"I'll be there."
I hang up. Stand in the hallway for a moment, letting the old coldness settle back into my bones. I've been soft lately. Distracted. Spending my days thinking about a nineteen-year-old girl with green eyes and a smile that makes me forget who I am.
Who I really am.
I push open the bedroom door. Lily is sitting up in bed, rubbing her eyes, my shirt rumpled and falling off one shoulder.
"Everything okay?" Her voice is thick with sleep.
"Work." I cross to the bed, lean down, kiss her forehead. "I have to go in early. Meeting."
"Bratva stuff?"
"Yes."
She doesn't push. Never does. Just nods and reaches for my hand, squeezes it once.
"Be careful."
"I'm always careful."
"Liar." She smiles, soft and sleepy, and something in my chest cracks open. "Come home to me."
"Always."
The meeting is tense.
Dimitri sits at the head of the table, flanked by Viktor and two of his captains. I take my usual seat at his right hand—the Sovietnik's chair, the adviser's position. I've sat here for twenty years. Today it feels heavier than usual.
"Walsh's chief of staff has been making calls," Dimitri says. "Discreet inquiries about his last movements. Someone talked to the driver."
"The driver is dead," Viktor says.
"Someone else, then. A doorman. A security guard." Dimitri's eyes find mine. "Someone who saw Walsh enter your building and never leave."
The room is silent. Waiting.
"I'll handle it," I say.
"How?"
"The way I always handle things." I meet his gaze without flinching. "Quietly. Permanently."
Dimitri studies me for a long moment. Then nods.
"Do it. And Leonid—" He pauses. "The girl. If she becomes a liability—"
"She won't."
"If shedoes—"
"She. Won't." My voice is harder than I intend. The room feels it—Viktor shifts in his seat, the captains exchange glances. "Lily knows nothing. She saw nothing. She's not involved."
"She saw you kill a senator."
