“No,” I said. “And he will not be told details tonight unless you choose to tell him.”
Her gaze snapped to mine. “Don’t you dare use him to keep me here.”
“I won’t.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“No. I expect to prove it.”
Lev’s phone buzzed again.
He read, then lifted his eyes. “Kask’s men were on her block ten minutes ago. They pulled away when ours made themselves visible.”
Nadia pressed one hand to her mouth.
Her knuckles were pale.
I wanted to touch her and had not earned it.
“Your brother is under my protection,” I said. “The immediate debt is being shut down.”
“How?”
“Money first. Pressure second. Paper third.”
“That tells me nothing.”
“It tells you I can move faster than Gennady can hurt him.”
Her eyes shone. “You paid it?”
“I’m paying what must be paid to remove his throat from Kask hands. Then I will decide which men thought a twenty-year-old’s marker gave them access to his sister.”
“Don’t hurt Petya.”
My head lifted. “Never.”
The word came out too hard.
Nadia heard it.
I took one breath through my nose and lowered my voice. “I won’t hurt him. I won’t threaten him. I won’t make him pay me for protecting you.”
Her eyes searched my face.
Lev’s phone buzzed again. He stepped closer and held it toward me.
A photograph filled the screen. Petya in a black hoodie under streetlight, shoulders hunched, phone in hand, alive and alone outside a closed storefront. One of my men had taken it from across the street.
I turned the phone so Nadia could see.
Her lips parted. She reached for the screen but stopped before touching Lev’s phone.
“Can he go home?” she asked.
“Yes,” Lev said. “We can let him go inside and hold the street.”
“Do that,” I said. “No one enters the building who does not live there. If he leaves again, stay with him.”
