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I open the top drawer of his desk.

Papa kept a leather address book like it was still 1”87. He said phones could be hacked and paper couldn't. I flip to L.

Lazovski, G. Papa's terrible handwriting. An address near the river. And beneath it, underlined twice, a single word in Russian.

Reliable.

I stare at it until my eyes sting. Then I close the book, put it in my back pocket, and take the knife from the bottom drawer, because if I'm going to a strange man's apartment at three in the morning, I'm doing it properly.

Garick's building is the kind of place that doesn't need a sign. Glass and steel and a doorman who looks up when I walk in, takes one look at my face, and presses the button for the elevator without asking who I'm here to see.

That's my first warning.

The second is the front door of his apartment, which is unlocked.

I stand in the hallway with my hand on the handle, staring at it.

He left it unlocked.

He's Bratva. He has enemies. Half of Chicago likely has a reason to want him dead, and the other half would do it for the right price, and he left his front door unlocked in the middle of the night.

For me.

I've never wanted to stab someone so badly in my life.

I push it open.

The apartment is dark except for a single lamp in the living room and the city lights spilling through floor-to-ceiling windows. Everything is gray and black and leather. It looks like a hotel suite for a man who doesn't want anyone to know what he likes.

He's sitting in an armchair facing the door.

No jacket. No tie. White shirt open at the throat, sleeves rolled to the elbow, forearms resting on his knees. There's an empty glass on the table beside him and a gun beside the glass.

He doesn't reach for the gun.

He doesn't stand up either. He just looks at me, steady and unsurprised, like I'm exactly on time for an appointment I didn't know I'd made.

“Arina.” There it is. My name in his mouth like it belongs there.

I let the door close behind me. “You left your door unlocked.”

He doesn’t say anything.

“You realize that's insane.”

“Some people will tell you it runs in the family.” He tilts his head toward the kitchen. “Coffee?”

“It's three in the morning.”

“It’s twenty to four.” He stands. I'd forgotten how tall he is. “You've been awake all night, and you're not going back to sleep after this. You'll want coffee.”

He walks past me into the kitchen like we do this every night.

I stand in the middle of his living room in a sweater I now realize belongs to Evaria, and I listen to Garick Lazovski make me coffee.

This is not how I planned it.

In my head, on the drive over, I was magnificent. I swept in. I said cutting, devastating things. He stammered. I left.