Page 135 of Mafia King’s Dangerous Vow

“Yes.”

I end the call.

The office is quiet around me. Forty floors above Manhattan, glass and steel and weather. Snow threatens behind the clouds, leaving the city washed in dull winter light. On my desk, three files wait in precise alignment.

Bellweather Storage.

Meridian Fine Holdings.

Morozov household surveillance.

I put the third one in the drawer just as the elevator doors open and Kalinin steps out wearing a charcoal overcoat, dark suit and leather gloves. His silver hair is combed back, his expression composed into the same mild civility he wore at the church, at the first operations meeting, and every time he walked into a room carrying something useful enough that people tolerated the rest.

He looks around once, inventorying. Security camera. Closed doors. Window position. Desk angle. No family photographs.

“Aleksander.”

“David.”

His mouth curves faintly. “No brother? No lawyer? No armed committee?”

“You asked to speak privately.”

“I did.”

“So speak.”

A brief silence. Something like amusement moves through his face. “My daughter was right.”

My hands stay flat on the desk. “About what?”

“You hate me.”

I picture her standing in his office, furious enough to forget caution. I wish I had seen his face. “She was being polite,” I say.

He removes his gloves slowly, finger by finger, and slips them into the pocket of his coat.

“May I sit?”

“No.”

He adjusts, remaining standing across from my desk. “I came to prevent a misunderstanding from becoming an operational problem.”

“A misunderstanding?”

“Tamara has received certain information. Naturally, that upset her.”

Naturally.

I say nothing.

Kalinin glances toward the chair he was not invited to take. Then he sits anyway.

I let him.

“Mark Callahan was a youthful attachment that went too far.”

“He was the father of her child,” I say slowly.