Page 46 of Mafia King

Worry begins to bleed into the anger.

Two hours. He should still be here.

The store is large, but it is not endless. If Theo has already left—if he felt the change in him when they parted, or if some quiet warning reached him from the same underground channels that hired him—then the next steps become sharper and less controlled.

Nikolai pauses at the foot of the final staircase that leads to the top floor. Then he remembers his words, Theo’s voice from a few days earlier, soft and almost shy, describing his favorite place in the entire city….

A particular nook on the highest level, tucked between the rare-book cases and a tall arched window that looks out over the older rooftops. He had spoken of it more than once—the worn leather chair, the quiet, the way the light fell across the pages in the late afternoon.

Nikolai takes the stairs two at a time. The top floor is quieter than the rest of the store. Dust motes hang in the slanted light. The air feels older here, heavier with the weight of books that have not been opened in years.

Nikolai moves past the glass cases of first editions, past a narrow gallery of maps, and toward the far corner where the arched window stands. His right hand rests loosely at his side, close to the familiar weight of the pistol he never leaves behind.

The rage has cooled into something precise and final.

One chance.

Then Theo faces what comes next and the final chapter of his short life comes to a close…

14

THEO

30 MINUTES EARLIER…

The top-floor nook is exactly as Theo remembers it: small, quiet, and perfectly proportioned for disappearing inside a novel and letting your imagination run wild and all your troubles fall away.

A single worn leather armchair sits angled toward the tall arched window. Late-afternoon light spills across the faded Persian rug and the low wooden shelf that holds a rotating selection of older children’s classics. The rest of the bookstore’s soft murmur feels distant here, as if the four floors below exist in another world…

And Theo is all there for it.

Theo settles into the chair with the careful reverence he always brings to this place. In his hands is a vintage edition of Winnie-the-Pooh, the cloth binding soft with age, the pages thick and slightly yellowed.

He opens it slowly, supporting the spine, and the familiar illustrations rise to meet him. Within a few paragraphs the present day begins to dissolve…

Theo is small again, sitting on the worn sofa in his grandfather’s ranch house while the evening light turns gold across the fields. Grandpa’s voice is steady and warm as he reads from his own first editions, Pooh and Piglet and the Hundred Acre Wood made real by the slow cadence of a man who never rushed the good parts.

“Read that part again, Grandpa, ppppppplease!” Theo whispers to himself, mimicking what he would say to his grandfather all those years ago.

Theo turns each page of the bookstore’s copy with the same care he once watched him use, giggling under his breath at Pooh’s earnest attempts to reach the honey, at Piglet’s tiny bravery, at the gentle absurdity of it all.

For a little while the sharp edges of his actual life—contracts, targets, the dangerous man he has allowed too close—fall away. There is only the story and the memory of being safe.

Then Theo’s heart skips a beat as the burner phone in his jacket pocket vibrates once, hard.

Theo freezes. He never brings the burner into places like this. The fact that it is active at all means the message has been pushed through multiple layers of routing.

He sets the book down on the broad arm of the chair, spine carefully supported, and draws the plain black device out.

One message waits…

TRACKER: Your identity is compromised. Deliver whatever intel you have on Chekov immediately or forfeit all payment. He may already be coming for you. Find safety and send me what you have. Failure to do so won’t just lead to non-payment… there is always a cost to be paid for failure.

The words hit like cold water. Theo’s breath shortens. Panic rises fast and sharp, flooding his chest and tightening his throat. He does not reply. His thumbs hover uselessly over the screen while the full weight of the message settles.

Compromised.

The careful walls he has lived behind for three years have cracked. Someone—Maxim, one of Nikolai’s people, an unknown third party—has connected the dots. Or it could be a data leak from one of the underground forums.