Page 21 of Fake Marriage Mafia Triplets

“You don’t. That’s the phrase you use to end a conversation.” He holds my gaze until I stop pretending it’s over. “I need you to actually hear it, because today may force you to choose between the operation and her, and I can’t run your security if I don’t know whether you’ll hold your position when it does.”

I don’t have an answer he’ll like, so I give him the true one. “I can’t promise you which one I’ll pick anymore.”

He nods once, and there’s no satisfaction in it. He’s already resetting his plans around a variable he didn’t have yesterday.

“Did anything come from the studio overnight?” I ask, because I need the subject moved.

“It stayed quiet. The two men who photographed Maren’s binder yesterday haven’t resurfaced. My people are on her block, the camera’s replaced, and the binder’s in our hands now instead of on a shelf facing a window.” Platon sets the still from the old door camera beside the verification file. “Somebody in Shilov’s orbit is building a picture of the sale chain, and today feeds it either way. If the widow survives scrutiny, he reads it as proof you might be alive. If you are, he’ll infer you’re protecting her and start testing the marriage for the crack. If she fails, he learns it’s a forgery and comes at you through her.” He closes the still. “Either result hands him something.”

“Then she doesn’t give them anything to flag.”

My phone rings against the metal table. Adrian’s name shows on the screen. I answer on speaker.

“Nikita.” He sounds like he’s been awake for hours. “I have the examiners’ final scope, and I wanted you to have it before they arrive. They’ll confirm the certificate against the death record, interview the widow on the marriage timeline, and reconcile the estate inventory against the last filed appraisal.”

“You can send me the scope.”

“There’s one item I want to handle carefully. The filed appraisal predates the liquidations. If the examiners can’t reconcile the missing pieces, they’ll flag it as unexplained loss and open an independent audit.” Paper shuffles on his end. “I’ve drafted a retroactive authorization. It states that the estate administrator approved the widow’s liquidations at the time they occurred. It resolves the inventory gap and protects her from a fraud finding. She should sign it before the examiners arrive.”

I look at Platon. He writes on the pad and turns it toward me. Who’s the administrator?

“Which administrator approved the liquidations, Adrian?”

He pauses, half a second, and recovers before he answers. “I did, as estate trustee. It’s a routine indemnification. The alternative is an audit that could run for months and put Mrs. Rusakov’s name in front of people you’d rather keep her away from.”

“Then you should send me the document and I’ll have it reviewed.”

The scratching of Adrian’s pen stops. “Who is reviewing it? You don’t have time before nine.”

“You should send it anyway. She signs nothing today until the outside attorney Platon retained has read it. I’m not letting you draft, deliver, and witness the same document without independent counsel.”

Adrian is quiet for a moment. “That’s your decision. I’d advise against the delay, but it’s your estate.” He ends the call.

Platon taps the pad. He wants her signature before the examiners can question him under their own authority.

“Or he’s just a lawyer closing a gap before it becomes an audit,” I write back, because one of us has to hold the other position, and this morning, it’s me. A trustee papering over an inventory discrepancy is the most ordinary thing an estate lawyer does. Reading treason into routine paperwork is how frightened men invent enemies, and I’ve buried people over less. “You should send the document to my counsel. She reads it after the verification, not before, and only if the language checks out.”

“I’ve already flagged it.” Platon closes the laptop halfway. “You should go up. She needs the last details before nine, and you need to be behind the glass before the cars arrive.”

I take the back stairs to the second floor. The landing is dark, the windows facing the garden wall where the early light doesn’t reach, and I stop outside the guest room longer than the task requires, which is becoming a habit I should break.

Piper is awake and dressed when I knock and enter. She’s in the gray sweater and dark slacks Vera sent up, her hair pulled back, her hands folded, and she’s built most of the widow already.

“What happened two nights ago doesn’t change the arrangement,” she says before I’ve crossed the room. “I need you to know I’m clear on that.”

“I know.” I let her keep the boundary, because arguing it an hour before the verification would help no one, and because I’m not sure enough of my own position to challenge hers. The composed stranger has taken the chair by the window, and the woman I argued with over a safe three nights ago has disappeared beneath the performance.

“It’s nine o’clock soon,” she says. Her voice is even, pitched low. “You should tell me what I can’t already work out myself.”

That’s the right question, and it steadies me. She forged the marriage packet. She chose the ceremony date, the town jurisdiction, and the week she finally submitted the delayed return. She knows the paperwork better than I do.

“You know the mechanics,” I say. I sit across from her, close enough to work and far enough to keep my hands to myself. “I’ll give you the parts you couldn’t build alone. The examiners will ask why a widow submitted a marriage return dated more than five years ago only three months ago, and why she stayed silent while the estate sat in trust. That’s the hole. Everything else is defensible. That one sinks you if you don’t have an answer ready.”

“I have an answer. I filed when the sale notice appeared and gave me a reason to walk into the house.” She says it without conviction, testing it against me. “It’s thin.”

“It’s thin because it’s built on opportunity, and opportunity is a thief’s motive, not a widow’s.” I lean forward. “The sale notice is the right event. It just needs a reason attached that sounds like grief and obedience instead of a break-in waiting for a chance. Private ceremony in Bridgehampton, no guests, an officiant who has since died. I made you promise to keep the completed license return unfiled and claim nothing until the estate forced your hand, and three months ago, the sale notice did. You submitted it that week because once the house was going to be sold, hiding it protected nothing.” I watch her take it in. “You’ll fill in the rest today in your own words. Memorized answers are what sink people. The frame is all you need from me.”

She considers that. “Where did I live for four years?”