Page 28 of Fake Marriage Mafia Triplets

Nikita doesn’t argue, so it’s true. He hired the person who could keep me alive and now has to watch him put hands on me. He chose the version that works over the version that’s comfortable for him. That’s the nicest thing anyone’s done for me in a while, even if it’s going to bruise.

“That’s good,” Platon says finally, with sincerity. “If you remember nothing else, remember the sequence.”

“I stomp the instep, drive my elbow in, twist free, and create distance,” I say back.

“You should be able to say it in your sleep.”

When Platon steps away to walk the perimeter with Nikita, I go into the observation room, and Maren hands me the cold coffee she’s been guarding like it’s a peace offering and an accusation at once.

“I have something to say,” she says.

“You already started.”

She looks confused. “I didn’t say anything yet.”

I snort. “You’ve been saying it through the glass for two hours.” I close one hand around the cup. “Say it, then.”

“You’ve started letting him stand where he can catch you if you fall,” Maren says. She takes the cup out of my hand and drinks from it herself, because I still haven’t. “I’m not warning you off him. I want to know if you can still spot a mark when it’s you, or if you’ve just decided this once not to look.”

I don’t have anything to say, because she’s not wrong, and she’s the only person alive allowed to say it to me.

Nikita drives us up to Riverdale after the range, Platon working the overnight reports from the front seat, Maren beside me in the back. Maren stays in the car when we arrive, because Callum asked to see me alone and I won’t make my brother perform for an audience.

The apartment is on the fourth floor of a Riverdale building. A doorman who works for Nikita controls the lobby, and two of Platon’s people occupy the unit across the hall. It’s a step up from what I’ve heard about the cottage, more secure and less like a place you’d hide a body.

Nikita waits in the hallway with the guards, and I go in alone. Callum opens the door looking better than the last time I saw him, before all this, but also angrier. “You didn’t have to come,” he says, stepping back to let me in. “This is the nicest place I’ve ever lived, but I hate every minute of it.”

“You look better.”

“They feed me. There’s a guy across the hall named Yuri who taught me chess and won’t let me win.” He drops onto the couch and stops trying to be lighthearted. “This started with my debt, Pipes. You robbed that house because I couldn’t dig myself out. I know I’m the reason.”

“Your debt is how they found a way in. You didn’t choose any of what came after it. Most of this isn’t yours to carry.”

“It feels like mine.” He braces his forearms on his knees. “There’s something else, and I need you not to screen your reaction so I don’t feel bad.”

“I’m not doing that.”

“You’re doing it right now.” He picks at a callus near his thumb. “I already told you they knew Dad’s name. What I couldn’t stop chewing on is the order they said it in, because Platon’s people keep asking me to walk through it from the top, and the fourth time, I finally heard it.” He looks up. “Your name came first. Then the Rusakov house. Then Dad’s provenance work, like old news. The money came last, Pipes. My debt, the thing they supposedly showed up about, was the last thing out of his mouth.”

I straighten in the chair and grip the arm of it, because I understand what he’s telling me before I want to.

“If they found you through the debt, they’d have led with the debt,” I say slowly. “That’s the leverage. You lead with the leverage.”

“Right. Instead, the debt was an afterthought.” Callum leans forward, and for a second, he looks less like my little brother and more like Dorian working a problem. “They didn’t find you through me. They already had you. I was just the address they happened to have. The guy even laughed when he finally got to the money, like the loan was the boring part, like he already knew it wouldn’t matter, because they had a better hold on us than that.”

A better hold on us than the loan. I can’t dismiss the phrase, because it describes the visit too accurately. The debt didn’t lead them to me. Somebody had already connected my name, the Rusakov estate, and Dorian before these men ever walked into Callum’s shop, and I can’t place who put me at the center of it, which stays with me alongside the other things I can’t solve yet.

“Have you told Platon this?”

“Three times. He said the order matters, then wouldn’t tell me which theory he’s testing.” Callum shrugs. “I figured you should hear it from me before it turns into one of their reports that bypasses you.”

The buzzer goes before I can answer. Callum looks toward the door and stops picking at his sleeve, and I know who it is before he says it.

“That’s Ma.” He won’t meet my gaze. “She’s been calling for days. I gave her the address and told the doorman to let her up. I thought if she saw I was fine, she’d stop.”

Nikita steps in from the hall, and his attention goes straight to Callum. “You cleared a visitor into a protected location and told her about the guards,” he says coldly. “Neither happens again.”

Callum freezes and nods, then crosses the room to open the door before Nikita can stop him, and the buzzer gives me no time to decide what that obedience means.