Page 157 of Mafia King’s Dangerous Vow

“You shouldn’t trust me,” I say. “Ivan shouldn’t trust me. But my father sent that woman. My father sent those men. And if you go home tonight, he’ll try again.”

“Your father is Kalinin?” Tears are streaming down her face. “Why would I go anywhere with you?”

“Because you would be going with him.”

I look at Ivan.

“He doesn’t leave your sight,” I say. “Not for a second. You sit with him. You hold him. You decide what he hears right now. We take you to our place in the city, somewhere my father cannot reach him, and then I will tell you everything I know.”

“Everything,” she repeats.

“Yes.”

Aleksander checks me. I stay with Anna.

“If you separate us,” she says, “I will scream until every person in Manhattan hears me.”

“Good,” I say.

That stops her.

“Good,” I repeat. “Do that.”

Anna keeps one hand in Ivan’s hair, moving steadily, as if rhythm alone can keep the world from shattering.

She doesn’t nod. She doesn’t speak. She just tightens her hold on Ivan and doesn’t move away.

It is enough.

My father stole my son from me. I will not steal his mother from him. Not even if it breaks me.

36

I WANT TO HATE YOU. (ALEKSANDER)

“Can he get in here?”

Anna Morozov asks the question as soon as she closes the guest bedroom door. She stands in the middle of our living room, wearing a white dress shirt that was probably clean this morning tucked into high-waisted jeans, her hair escaping its bun and one hand pressed flat against her stomach. Her face is pale, but her voice is steady. That tells me she has practice staying functional when scared.

I understand that kind of woman.

“No one gets past the lobby without us knowing.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

Tamara rises from the sofa. “Anna, please. Sit down.”

She looks at Tamara, then in the direction of the bedrooms. Refusing my help, she carried Ivan from the garage into our apartment herself.

“I asked if my son is safe.”

I look toward the hallway. Ivan is behind one of the doors, asleep at last, with his mother’s scarf clutched in one fist and two armed men stationed outside the private elevator.

Then my attention catches on the empty wall above the fireplace.

The Kandinsky is still gone. Tamara has changed the room around that absence without trying to disguise it—warmer chairs, a low wood table, linen lamps softening the severe corners. The room no longer feels preserved for a dead woman.

The missing painting should make it feel incomplete. Instead, it makes room.