Page 51 of Mafia King’s Dangerous Vow

“That’s the plan.”

“You should,” Maya says. “You sound more like yourself when you’re working.”

After we hang up, I move into the study instead of going to bed.

Over the last few days, my work has started patiently spreading through the room. Material binders stacked beside acquisition reports. Fabric samples draped over the back of one of Aleksander’s chairs. Pencils and floor plans slowly overtaking the far end of his desk.

At first, I kept trying to contain it. Packing everything away each night. Keeping my side temporary.

But Aleksander never seemed bothered by it. If anything, he’s been unexpectedly careful with my things.

The samples I leave open reappear stacked neatly by morning. My sketches stay exactly where I left them instead of disappearing into organized piles. Yesterday I found one of my lighting boards repositioned farther from the windows so the afternoon sun wouldn’t fade the fabric swatches.

The kind of attention that feels far more dangerous than grand gestures.

I settle into the chair and open my laptop.

Work steadies me.

Before I open the mood boards, I start the playlist I use when a room won’t settle in my head. Low piano. Brushed drums. A trumpet slipping between the notes like smoke.

Jazz, always.

Classical music tells a room what it should feel like. Jazz lets it breathe first.

The notes soften the study almost immediately, taking the edge off the glass and steel, making the apartment feel less like a place designed to impress people and more like a place someone might stay.

Mood boards first, then lighting studies. Traffic flow through the living room—there isn’t any currently, which explains the feeling of being watched by furniture. Texture balance.

The apartment slowly begins reassembling itself across my screens in conceptual layers. Warmer woods to counteract the marble. Softer architectural lighting. Breaking the symmetry in the living room. Making spaces people can actually use.

The goal is not to replace Elena. I know that before I can explain why.

I’m adjusting lighting plans when a shadow crosses the doorway.

Aleksander.

I hadn’t heard him come in.

He pauses just inside the study, taking in the room piece by piece. The restoration contacts open on one monitor. Floor plans on another. Material samples spread across the desk. Fabric swatches draped over the back of his chair. The low jazz still playing from my laptop, soft enough to be background, intimate enough that I suddenly feel caught.

“You’re still working,” he says.

“So are you.”

He notices the restoration estimate. “You found conservators quickly.”

Whatever he feels about it, he keeps it to himself.

“I know people in the auction world.”

Aleksander steps farther into the room, stopping beside the desk. Close enough now that I catch the familiar scent of cedar and smoke beneath the snow lingering in his coat.

His attention shifts toward the redesign boards. “You changed the lighting first.”

“The current layout emphasizes symmetry over atmosphere.”

“And the jazz?”