Page 80 of Dark King Daddy

“I’ll be ready at ten.”

He nodded without looking up.

I walked to the door. Three steps from the threshold, I stopped.

“Daniil.”

He raised his head.

I wanted to say thank you. I wanted to say something that matched the weight of what he had done—the macaroni, the armchair across the room, the open door, the silence he had maintained all morning while I rebuilt my walls brick by brick.

I could not find the words. The polished, articulate woman in the charcoal blazer and the “don’t fuck with me” heels could not construct a sentence adequate to the moment.

“I’ll see you this evening,” I said.

“Yes. Looking forward to it.”

Harbor House smelled of wet plaster, sawdust, and the particular mineral tang of standing water in old walls. I breathed it in and felt my spine straighten.

This was my ground.

The scaffold stood in the main gallery, aluminum frames locked together, platforms set at twelve and sixteen feet. Dehumidifiers hummed in the corners. Plastic sheeting covered the baseboards.

Ilya followed me through the entrance. He was built like a refrigerator with a head—broad, silent, and visibly uncomfortable inside a building site. His suit jacket had collected dust within thirty seconds. He kept his hand near his side, where his weapon sat beneath the fabric.

“The scaffold hasn’t been cleared by security,” he said.

“I cleared it. It’s my site.”

“My instructions—”

“Your instructions are to accompany me. Not to inspect my damn scaffolding.”

He gave me a look of begrudging respect.

I found the foreman, Dwayne, near the east wall. He stood with his clipboard and his hard hat and the expression of a man who had been fighting a losing battle with water damage for more than a week.

“Status,” I said.

“Dehumidifiers are pulling moisture. Plaster on the north wall is soft past the first inch — we’ll need to cut back to solid substrate. Floorboards on the second level took the worst of it. Six boards swollen beyond repair. I’ve got replacements ordered but the supplier—”

“I’ll handle the supplier. Show me the floor.”

Zoe appeared from behind the scaffold, wearing paint-splattered overalls, work boots, and earrings shaped like tiny gold screws. Her hair was tied back with a pencil. She held a measuring tape in one hand and a half-eaten granola bar in the other.

“You’re alive,” she said. “You’re married. You’re wearing heels to a construction site.”

“I brought flats.”

“You’re wearing heels.”

“I’ll change.”

“You won’t. Let’s go up.”

We climbed the scaffold together. The aluminum rungs rang under our shoes. At the sixteen-foot platform, the damage was visible — six floorboards buckled along the grain, the original quarter-sawn oak warped beyond saving. I knelt and pressed my thumb into the edge of the worst board. It gave. Spongy. Done.

“The supplier’s sending European oak,” Dwayne called from below. “Same dimensions.”