Page 102 of Mafia King’s Dangerous Vow

This time the smile stays a little longer.

The waiter returns with her wine, my water, and the small plates I ordered when I called ahead because I didn’t trust either of us to remember food: blini with smoked trout, mushrooms on toast, olives, and a plate of chicken wings Tamara eyes with suspicion.

She picks one up and takes a cautious bite.

The music starts. Trumpet low and rough. Piano soft beneath it. The bass moving steadily through the room like a heartbeat.

Tamara leans back in her chair. I watch her shoulders lower and realize I’ve been waiting for that.

“Do you like jazz?” she asks.

“Not particularly.”

Her eyes cut to mine.

“But you do,” I say.

That stops whatever she was about to say. She looks back toward the stage. The trumpet player has his eyes closed. The pianist watches his hands. The room gives itself over to the music.

“That is such an Aleksander answer.”

“I’ll try to be someone else next time.”

“Don’t.”

The word comes too quickly. We both hear it.

Tamara reaches for her wine, and I let her have the retreat.

For a while, we just listen to the music. It’s not comfortable exactly, but it’s not sharp either. The silence at Kalinin’s desk was a weapon. The silence here is something else: a narrow space between notes where nothing is demanded.

Tamara eats half the mushroom toast and a few more chicken wings. I don’t comment, because I am not suicidal.

She catches me looking anyway. “What?”

“Nothing.”

The music fills the space between us.

“Why did you bring me?” she asks.

I could repeat what I told her in the apartment, that her father spent the morning making her useful. Instead, I give her the worse truth.

“Because when you came home, I wanted to put men on every street between here and Woodstock, lock every door, call in every debt your father has ever owed, and keep moving until no one was left who could touch you or your son.”

She gives me nothing.

“I know,” I say before she can answer. “That’s exactly the problem.”

Tamara sets her wine down. “If I had chosen to go to Woodstock last night, would you have taken me?”

“Yes.”

“Even if you thought it was wrong?”

“Yes.”

“Even if Ivan screamed for Anna and hated me for it?”