Nadia didn’t move until the door closed.
Then she pulled her hand from beneath mine and set both palms on the table.
“I don’t want to be Lot Fourteen again in this room,” she said.
“You won’t be,” I said.
My father’s eyes moved to me, but he didn’t speak.
The door opened again.
Gennady Kask entered with two Kask men behind him and his mouth still swollen from the punch I’d given him at the auction. He wore a dark suit and a red tie. His rings flashed when he adjusted his cuff, and his smile arrived before he’d measured the room properly.
Then he saw Nadia.
The smile widened.
I rose.
The room shifted with me.
Gennady stopped smiling.
“Look at me,” I said.
His gaze moved from Nadia to my face.
That small obedience pleased me less than I’d expected. Men like Gennady always knew where power lived, but they gambled that women would never be allowed close enough to use it.
“Vadim,” he said. “Your family has made this more dramatic than it needed to be.”
“You sent a photograph of Petya Yelchin from a compromised location and demanded payment for debt plus loss.”
“Petya owes.”
“Petya owed.”
Gennady’s eyes narrowed. “That isn’t how markers work.”
“It’s how this one works.”
One of the Kask men behind him shifted. He was older than Gennady, heavier through the shoulders, and careful enough to look at Mikhail before he looked at the evidence on the table. He understood the danger faster.
Gennady didn’t.
“The girl was sold to me,” Gennady said. “Your son entered after the hammer.”
Mikhail’s cane tapped once against the floor.
Gennady went silent.
My father’s voice was low. “Choose your next words with care.”
Gennady looked at Nadia again.
I stepped forward.
His gaze snapped back to me.
