Page 127 of Mafia King’s Dangerous Vow

“Good,” Igor says before I can answer. “If we rush, he feels the floor move. We need the floor to move after he has already stepped off it.”

Yakov gives me nothing, which from him is close enough.

Nikolai reaches for the first folder. “Kalinin has fewer loyalists than he thinks. He has people who answer because he has been useful and because no safer man has asked.”

“No safer man?” Mikhail says.

Nikolai opens the folder. “Compared with you? Many men are safe.”

“I’m wounded.”

“No one believes that.”

Yuri cuts in before Mikhail can respond. “Nikolai can approach two documentation vendors through intermediaries. Both have complained about Kalinin’s terms. One has a nephew with gambling debt. The other has a wife who wants out of Moscow and into London.”

“Buy them,” Igor says.

Nikolai looks at him. “With money or with salvation?”

“Whichever lasts longer,” I say.

That earns me a glance from Yakov. He takes the next folder. “Storage is more delicate. Kalinin uses three private facilities. One matters. The other two are cover and overflow. Touch the wrong one, he hears. Touch the right one too hard, he hears faster. We ask questions from the outside instead: insurance, appraisals, new ownership interest. Nothing with your name near it.”

“Certification?” Igor asks.

“Easier,” Yakov says. “Experts are vain. Make one feel underpaid and another feel overlooked. They’ll tell you where the bodies are buried to prove they noticed first.”

Mikhail laughs under his breath. “Academics with invoices.”

“Worse.” Nikolai chuckles. “Art people.”

“Customs?” Igor asks.

“The delicate part,” Yuri says. “Kalinin has two operatives he uses when a shipment cannot survive ordinary inspection. One here. One in Rotterdam.”

“Loyal?” I ask.

“No,” Yuri says. “Trapped.”

Yakov grunts. “So we offer a roomier cage.”

Nikolai’s smile returns, slow and pleased. “That I can do.”

“We can’t cause panic,” I say.

Igor’s gaze shifts to my face and stays there. He has known me too long to mistake the words for reassurance.

“You are very controlled tonight,” he says.

Mikhail looks over. “That sounds ominous.”

“It is,” Igor says. “The last time Aleksander sounded this controlled, three men left Moscow without passports.”

“They were inefficient,” I say.

His eyes remain on mine. The room waits because every man in it understands when a brother stops joking before anyone else notices.

“You want to punish Kalinin because she asked,” Igor says.