Page 170 of Mafia King’s Dangerous Vow

“Then why aren’t you answering?”

His smile disappears.

When I open the door, Mikhail is exactly where I left him, one ankle crossed over the other, sunglasses back on, expression lazy enough to insult everyone who understands what he is.

The receptionist sits very still behind her desk. Mikhail rises. He takes one look at me, then past me into the office.

“Do I need to go in?”

“No.”

His mouth curves without humor. “Disappointing.”

I step into the corridor. Behind me, my father says my name.

“Tamara.”

He uses the old voice. Low. Private. Almost tender. The voice that taught me to come closer even when every instinct said to run.

I stop. Some part of me still moves toward that voice before the rest of me catches it.

Mikhail’s posture changes by half an inch. I don’t turn around.

“If you walk away now,” Papa says, “you close the last door between us.”

I sigh and look back at him. He is standing behind his desk with two silent phones in front of him and no one coming through the door.

“Exactly.”

Mikhail falls into step beside me. We walk down the corridor past the conference room, past the framed photographs, past the brass plaque on the wall. The receptionist keeps her eyes on her desk.

Behind us, my father’s phone begins ringing again.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

The sound follows us all the way to the elevator.

No one rushes to answer it.

39

THE BACK ROOM IS WRONG. (TAMARA)

Life has entered this apartment without asking permission. A cashmere throw I didn’t put away last night is folded imperfectly over the arm of the sofa. A pair of children’s sneakers sits discarded by the entry bench, one tipped on its side, laces loose. A navy coat hangs beside Aleksander’s black one. Anna’s scarf is draped over the back of a chair.

Small things. Ordinary things. Evidence that someone else’s life has been brought here.

Mikhail’s hand hovers half an inch from my elbow, then drops before he touches me. “You good?”

“No.” I step forward anyway.

Voices come from the dining area. Aleksander’s first, then Anna’s. Nothing in either voice sounds like panic. Only then do I realize I had been preparing for it.

Aleksander appears at the edge of the living room before I reach the dining area. He is still in the suit he wore this morning, jacket gone, sleeves rolled to his forearms, looking like a man who has spent the last hour turning logistics into violence.