Page 159 of Mafia King’s Dangerous Vow

Tamara sits beside Anna, composed in the way people are when breaking costs too much. “David Kalinin is Ivan’s grandfather.” Tears spill down her face, her expression the same.

“No.” Anna’s voice is threadbare. “You’re lying.”

Tamara doesn’t defend herself. She doesn’t rush to the folder on the table or look to me for proof. She only reaches for Anna’s hand and takes it gently, giving her time to pull away.

Anna does not.

“I wish I were,” Tamara says.

Anna looks at their joined hands. “Pavel said the adoption was legal.”

“It was made to look that way.”

“He said the mother signed.”

“I didn’t.”

Anna pulls free and stands. The water glass wobbles on the table, then steadies. “He told me there was a girl who couldn’t keep him. He told me her family wanted privacy. He told me everything went through an attorney.”

Tamara nods once. “Samuel Berman.”

Anna’s face drains of color. She recognizes the name.

I pick up the folder from the side table and set it in front of her, within reach but unopened. “Berman handled the private-placement file. The consent documents have irregular dates and witness names. Pavel received payments through accounts tied to Kalinin after the hospital transfer. We traced the chain.”

Anna looks at the folder as if it might split open and swallow the room. “Pavel wouldn’t steal a baby.”

I say nothing.

Her gaze stays on the folder. “After he died, I found an account in the low six figures. It was enough to pay off the car and cover part of the mortgage.” Her mouth tightens. “I thought he had been hiding consulting money. I was furious with him.”

Her voice sounds younger now, changed by the collapse of a dead man’s memory inside the woman who loved him.

Tamara’s throat moves, but she says nothing.

Anna presses both palms to her mouth, then lowers them. “We lost two pregnancies.” She swallows. “Pavel wanted a child so badly. I wanted one too. I would have believed almost anything if it ended with a baby in my arms.” A broken breath leaves her. “Maybe I did.”

No one interrupts that admission. Her attention moves to Tamara again. “Did he know?”

Tamara’s face tightens. I answer because this truth should not be another wound she has to deliver. “He knew enough to take money and follow instructions.”

Anna absorbs it. I think she will throw the glass at me. I wouldn’t blame her.

Instead, she sits back down. “He had reflux,” she says.

Tamara’s fingers close against the edge of the sofa cushion.

Anna looks at her with raw, exhausted defiance. “Did your people put that in the report? He screamed every night for weeks. I walked him by the kitchen window until my feet went numb. He hated the blue bottle and only took the green one, though God knows whether it was the nipple or the shape or pure infant tyranny. He still counts stairs when he’s nervous.”

Tamara doesn’t flinch. “I didn’t know.”

Anna wipes her face with the back of her hand. “Are you taking him from me?”

“No.”

The answer comes immediately.

Anna blinks, stunned by the speed of it. The suspicion sharpening every line of her body softens.