Page 126 of Mafia King’s Dangerous Vow

Mikhail occupies the chair nearest the windows, long legs stretched out, looking deceptively lazy.

“This better be good. I abandoned a very beautiful woman after a perfectly adequate dinner date.”

Igor scoffs. “She will never know how lucky she was.”

“Shut it.” Mikhail flips him the bird. “She was only moderately afraid of me.”

Nikolai Volkov arrives seven minutes late, which is either disrespect or marital immunity. Since he is married to my sister, he likes to claim both. He walks in wearing a dark suit, no tie, and the faint look of a man who expects us to apologize for interrupting his evening.

His gaze moves to Mikhail. “The last time you were this restless, I ended up married.”

Mikhail’s mouth flattens. “You’re welcome.”

“For Katarina? Absolutely.” Nikolai drops into the chair opposite him. “For the rest of it, I still reserve judgment.”

Igor’s expression barely shifts. “That was not his finest hour.”

Nikolai’s attention shifts to me, and the humor in the room dies quickly. “How is Tamara?”

The question lands harder because he doesn’t dress it up.

“Standing.”

Nikolai nods once. He understands the answer.

Yakov’s voice comes from the far end of the room. “Then we are here because standing is not enough.”

I move behind my desk but don’t sit.

Yuri has arranged a different map from the one we used yesterday. Names. Companies. Storage facilities. Certification houses. Documentation vendors. Customs brokers. European handlers.

Doors.

People who answer Kalinin’s calls because they need his paperwork.

“We need to make him irrelevant,” I say.

Igor sets his glass down. “Without him noticing before we are ready.”

“Exactly.”

Yuri turns the tablet toward us. “Kalinin’s network has twelve visible points of value. Four matter. Maybe five.”

Yakov grunts. “Four. Documentation. Storage. Certification. Customs. The rest is performance.”

“European transit?” Igor asks.

“Habit,” Yakov says. “Useful, yes. Irreplaceable, no. Men confuse a door with the hallway behind it.”

Nikolai leans back. “Kalinin prefers that confusion. Makes him look taller.”

“Can we build around the four?” I ask.

Yakov looks at me as if the question is beneath both of us. “Of course.”

“How long?”

“If you want it clean? Weeks.”