Page 177 of Mafia King’s Dangerous Vow

I have spent most of my adult life closing doors.

This one has to stay open.

“If she leaves,” I say, “she leaves protected.”

Mikhail drags a hand over his jaw. “For the record, this emotionally healthy version of you is very inconvenient for the rest of us.”

Igor doesn’t let the joke save either of us. “And you?”

I hate how simple the answer is.

For me, it feels like doing the one thing I was trained never to do: leaving the route unsecured.

“She didn’t choose the cathedral,” I say. “She chooses the rest.”

Igor studies me long enough to know I mean it. “Good.”

Twenty minutes later, I leave to open the one door I cannot control.

41

THE SOFA DOES NOT STAY. (ALEKSANDER)

Yuri’s calls carry us home. Otherwise, the SUV gives me too much room to think. Snow has started again, thin and restless, not enough to soften the city yet. Just enough to make every windshield flash white beneath streetlights.

The building garage is secure when we arrive. Two men by the elevator, one near the service entrance, none close enough to Anna’s temporary apartment to make her feel watched. When I step into the private elevator, Yuri turns to me.

“Anna asked whether she’ll be notified before any shift change.”

“She will.”

“She also asked if she can order groceries without someone checking the bags.”

A reasonable question in an unreasonable life.

“Let her order groceries. Check the delivery person, not the apples.”

In the closed elevator, I am alone with my reflection. Charcoal suit. Open collar. No tie. The pale marks on the inside of my arm visible where one cuff has shifted back. Scars, old enough to be history but not old enough to be forgotten.

A week ago, Tamara put her mouth on them and did not flinch.

Yesterday, she sat in my living room and gave up the easiest version of motherhood because it would have hurt a child.

Some people survive by hardening. Tamara has done the more dangerous thing. She stayed soft where it cost her.

The elevator opens into the penthouse.

The children’s sneakers are gone from beside the entry bench, moved downstairs with Ivan. Anna’s scarf is gone too. The navy coat no longer hangs beside mine. But the apartment has not returned to what it was.

There’s a faint smear of Nutella on the dining table that someone missed wiping this morning. A folded blanket on the sofa where Ivan slept for twenty-three minutes before waking in terror and asking for Anna. One of Tamara’s pencils lies beneath a chair.

The drawing is gone.

He took it with him.

I stand in the entryway longer than necessary, looking at the room I used to mistake for calm.

It was not calm.