Page 148 of Dark King Daddy

“The guard.”

“Boris is clearly visible in frame three. The holster. His position relative to the car. They’re showing us they’ve identified our security protocols.”

I looked at the first photograph again. Ksenia stepping onto the sidewalk outside The Glasshouse. My coat around her shoulders. Her face turned slightly toward Ilya, mid-sentence, unaware.

She had been smiling.

I reached for my phone. The instinct was immediate and total—call her, tell her to stay inside, tell her to lock the doors, tell her not to leave Dover Street until I said she could. The words were already forming.

My thumb hovered over her name.

The phone rang. Not Ksenia.

Kostya.

“Daniil.” Kostya’s voice was measured. Careful. The tone of a man choosing each word before releasing it. “I hope I’m not interrupting.”

“You’re not.”

“Good. Good.” A pause. I heard background noise—traffic, maybe. Or a restaurant. The ambient sound of a man calling from somewhere public. “I wanted to speak with you. Man to man. Before the situation develops further.”

“Which situation?”

“The situation with the Voronins.” Another pause. Longer. “I understand they’ve reached out to you.”

I said nothing. Nikita’s head turned fractionally toward me. I kept my eyes on the photographs.

“I think you need to consider your next move very carefully,” Kostya said. “Viktor is not a man who makes idle proposals. If he’s offering terms, it’s because he believes he’s in a position to enforce them. And I think—” Kostya paused again. The careful pauses of a man constructing a sentence he could later deny having said. “I think taking Ksenia somewhere away from the city for a while might be a sensible precaution.”

“Ksenia.”

“She’s visible, Daniil. A man in your position, with a wife in her position—”

“In her position?”

“With a wife who is visible. It would be prudent to reduce that visibility.”

“You think I should send her away.”

“I think you should consider it. Among other options.”

The car turned onto the BQE. The harbor appeared below us—grey water, container cranes, the distant silhouette of the Red Hook waterfront where the bathhouse stood. I watched it pass.

“Kostya.”

“Yes.”

“When did you begin discussing this offer with Viktor?”

The silence was different this time. Not the careful, constructed silence of a man choosing words. The involuntary silence of a man who had not expected the question.

“I’m not discussing anything with Viktor.”

“Then how do you know about these details?”

Nothing. The background noise continued—traffic, a horn, the ordinary sounds of a city that did not care about the conversation happening inside this car. Kostya breathed. I heard him breathe.

“The terms were communicated to me this morning,” he said finally. “Through channels. I assumed—”