Page 2 of Dark King Daddy

Silence. Arkady shifted behind me. Nikita had not moved.

“It’s not yourself,” I said. “If you were worried about yourself, you’d be watching the door, hoping no-one worse comes in. You’re watching the clock. That means someone is somewhere right now, and you’re afraid of what happens to them when a certain amount of time passes.”

Yuri’s face crumpled. Not dramatically. The muscles around his mouth gave way first, then his forehead, then his shoulders. He bent forward in the chair as far as the zip ties allowed.

“My brother,” he said.

“Name.”

“Denis. He’s nineteen.”

“What does Denis have to do with you stealing my freight schedules?”

Yuri’s head came up. “I didn’t — they — the Voronins. They found out Denis owes money. Gambling. He’s stupid, he’s nineteen, he’s so fucking stupid, and they told me if I gave them route information they would forget the debt. If I didn’t, they’d collect from him.”

I let the name settle. Voronin. Another family, building themselves out of Newark, pushing into territory that did not belong to them. I had been watching them for months.

“Who specifically made this threat?”

“Boris Karpov. He works for them. He came to me at the yard three weeks ago. He knew about Denis already. He knew everything — how much, who Denis owed it to, where Denis lived. He had photographs.”

“Photographs of Denis.”

“Of Denis at his apartment. At his job. Getting off a bus.” Yuri’s voice broke on the last word. “He’s nineteen,” he repeated. “He works at a tire shop. He doesn’t — he’s not part of this. He doesn’t know what I — “

“Stop.”

He stopped.

I leaned forward. “Denis will not pay for what you did. Do you understand me? His debt is erased. As of now. Whatever the Voronins claim he owes, it’s finished. I will make certain of that.”

Yuri stared at me. His mouth opened and nothing came out.

“But you,” I continued, “you owe me everything now. Not because I’m threatening your brother. Because I just protected him, and that protection has a price. The price is information. Complete. Truthful. Now.”

I waited.

Nikita unfolded his arms. He straightened against the wall but said nothing. He was letting me work.

Yuri talked.

He told me Karpov had approached him at the Maspeth yard during a shift change, when the dispatch office was briefly empty. Karpov had been calm, specific, and patient. He had not threatened. He had presented the photographs and the debt as though discussing an insurance premium.

“He wanted routes,” Yuri said. “Specifically routes carrying Orlov cargo.”

I went still.

“Orlov cargo.”

“Every time. That’s all he asked about. Which trucks, which days, which warehouses. He said the old arrangement was finished.”

“The old arrangement?”

“His words. He said it three, four times. ‘The old arrangement is finished.’ I didn’t know what it meant. I don’t — I just move schedules, I don’t know what the arrangement — “

“You know enough to know who the Orlovs are.”

Yuri looked at the floor.