Page 71 of Merciless Daddy

“Tell him the pink ones taste like soap.”

Tonio went quiet.

Then he repeated it through the door.

There was a pause.

A lock turned. Then another. The door opened. I heard the door open.

Kiryl’s first breath through Tonio’s microphone sounded like the nursery door opening after a nightmare.

Quick. Shallow. Trying not to make trouble.

“Put on the jacket,” Tonio told him. “Arms in. Good. Hat too.”

“I look ridiculous.”

“You look employed—obviously you’re workshy.”

“Where’s Lena?”

“Chicago.”

A pause.

“That seems like a long way away.”

“It is not far enough for your sister. She is currently inside my skull.”

“I heard that,” I said.

Tonio’s soft laugh came through the line.

I bent over the plan.

“Leave the blue room and turn left,” I said. “Do not return by the flower room. The guard passed that way. Take the east servants’ hall to the kitchen.”

Tonio relayed each instruction to Kiryl, then followed it.

Two sets of footsteps moved now. Tonio’s controlled pace. Kiryl’s lighter, less certain one.

“Slow down,” I told them. “A frightened man hurries. A tired worker doesn’t.”

“Cool it, Kiryl. Nice and slow,” Tonio murmured. “Try to look a little exploited.”

“I don’t know how.”

“Think about taxes?”

Even I nearly laughed.

Then a radio chirped in the corridor. Everything stopped. A man spoke in accented English. “Who is that?”

Kiryl inhaled sharply.

Tonio said something in Italian under his breath.

The man’s voice sharpened. “Kiryl Lvovich?”