Page 168 of Mafia King’s Dangerous Vow

I don’t step back.

“You arrogant little girl,” he hisses.

My fingers curl against my palm. Then I uncurl them. The office phone rings again. My father ignores it.

It rings a second time. Then a third.

I glance at the console. “That one seems important.”

He slams his hand down on the desk. The bronze lamp rattles. A pen rolls toward the edge and drops onto the carpet.

A cold rush moves through me, bright and old, but it has nowhere to go. I keep my feet planted and let him see exactly how little the outburst has scared me.

His nostrils flare. Outside the door, the corridor remains quiet. Mikhail doesn’t enter. He doesn’t need to. My father understands violence. More than that, he understands consequence. That’s why he doesn’t touch me. It should feel like victory. Instead, it settles the last question I ever had about him.

He was always capable of restraint. He simply chose cruelty when cruelty worked better.

The office phone stops ringing. A moment later, his cell lights up. He looks at the screen. The name means enough to pull him away from me.

He answers. “Yes?”

At first, he only listens. The rage leaves his face, replaced by colder calculation.

“That is not acceptable.”

I return to my chair and sit. His attention cuts briefly to me, furious that I’ve made myself comfortable in the middle of his inconvenience.

The voice on the other end continues. I catch fragments through the charged air.

Compliance.

Review.

Temporary hold.

Alternate signatory.

My father turns toward the window. “Who authorized the review?”

His hand tightens.

“I will remember this.”

He ends the call.

There are no assistants entering with solutions. No men appearing at the door. No second phone placed in his hand with another contact already waiting. The machinery around him is still there, polished and expensive and obedient-looking, but the gears no longer move for his hand.

That’s why I came. To watch the exact second he understood that power can become a locked door from the wrong side.

The screen lights up again. He doesn’t answer.

Once.

Twice.

Then it stops.

My father lowers himself back into his chair with care. “You are still my daughter.”