Page 67 of Mafia King’s Dangerous Vow

“Correct,” Vasiliy says from somewhere behind us.

Galina lifts her glass toward him without turning around. “Good answer.”

Laughter ripples through the apartment, and for one strange moment, the evening feels almost normal.

Then Igor appears in the dining room doorway. “Dinner before my daughter starts charging people late fees,” he announces.

Sofiya gasps dramatically. “Papa.”

Aleksander’s hand remains at my back as we move toward the dining room, guiding and careful.

Dinner unfolds slowly after that. Too much food. Too much wine. Conversations overlapping across the long table while snow drifts beyond the windows and Shostakovich plays in the background.

For a few minutes, it could be any other Manhattan dinner party. People arguing about Ukraine, a recent New Yorker piece about museums laundering private money into public virtue, whether Bulgakov is overrated or simply overassigned by men who like hearing themselves explain allegory.

Katya has strong opinions on all three. Galina corrects someone’s translation from across the table without looking up from her wine. Katarina points out that everyone always reaches for Solzhenitsyn and Bulgakov before remembering Russian women have been documenting collapse for generations.

“And before that,” Galina says, “Dostoevsky’s wife was transcribing his manuscripts while everyone else decided genius happened alone.”

Vasiliy says something in Russian.

Galina lifts her glass without looking at him. “Careful.”

It could be any dinner party, really.

If you ignore the guns.

Aleksander mostly listens, occasionally speaking near my shoulder and refilling my wine before I notice it needs it.

Under the table, his hand brushes mine once. Accidental enough to ignore. Then stays.

I stare at my wine glass. Around us the table continues—Vasiliy saying something about Gessen and the psychology of post-Soviet obedience, Katya countering with Ioffe and a history built around women who kept functioning, Katarina laughing. It all becomes background.

I turn my hand over slowly and lace my fingers through his. His thumb moves against my knuckles in response.

I chose that. He didn’t take it.

The conversation around us continues uninterrupted, but suddenly I’m aware of everything. The warmth of his hand. The roughness of his skin. The steady weight of him beside me.

Aleksander glances toward me. “You okay?”

The question is quiet enough that no one else hears it. Somehow that matters too.

“Yes,” I say.

For a second, his eyes hold mine. Across the table, Katya catches the movement and smirks into her wine glass.

I ignore her deliberately.

Because she’s right.

The apartment is quiet when we get back. I’m hanging up my coat when I feel him behind me, just there in the way he always is now.

I turn.

His gaze drops briefly to my mouth, and something low in my stomach tightens in response.

“You’re beautiful.” The words sound almost reluctant, like he tried not to say them and failed anyway.