“You slept in a chair in your own bedroom?”
“You were in the bed.”
“That does not answer the question.”
“It does.”
“Vadim.”
His name came out rougher than I meant it to.
His eyes lowered to my mouth, then came back to mine. “I wanted to be near enough if you woke afraid. I also wanted you to wake without me in the bed before you decided whether you were angry.”
“Very considerate for a man who carried me out of an illegal auction.”
His jaw flexed once. “I remember what I did.”
“So do I.”
The air changed.
It tightened, like silk drawn slowly between two hands.
I drank half the water because my mouth was too dry to keep arguing with dignity. Vadim watched me do it, then stepped back instead of touching me.
I set the glass on the tray. “Where is Petya?”
“Safe.”
“That is not an answer either.”
“No,” Vadim said. “It is the first answer. The fuller one is that Lev found him before dawn. Petya is not in Kask custody. He is not hurt beyond what you already knew. He was moved somewhere my men can watch the entrances.”
“Moved where?”
“To a Sorin-controlled apartment in Brooklyn.”
My stomach tightened. “Did he agree?”
“He argued.”
“That sounds like Petya.”
“He stopped arguing when Lev explained that Kask men were asking after him.”
I stood again, slower this time. “I want to talk to him.”
“I expected that.”
“You expected it, or you allow it?”
Vadim’s eyes sharpened. “You’re not a child asking permission.”
“Then give me a phone.”
He looked at the nightstand.
My phone sat there beside the lamp, plugged into a charger, the cracked corner of the case visible against the dark wood.
