Page 113 of Mafia King’s Dangerous Vow

The other conservator kneels near the painting and begins checking the temporary wrapping. His movements are precise and impersonal. Professional hands touching something I have avoided touching since the tear happened.

I watch because looking away would feel worse. Tamara stands beside me, silent. I think of Elena in the gallery chair, blanket over her knees, smiling like she had forced beauty into my life against my will and expected me to be grateful eventually.

She was right. She usually was.

The conservators settle the painting into the transport crate. Foam supports. Straps. Climate protection.

Layer by layer, the visible piece of Elena disappears into procedure. Tamara’s hand finds mine, and I close my fingers around hers.

“This was my fault,” she says quietly.

“Yes.”

Her breath catches. I look at her then. “But it is not only yours to carry.”

She nods. The crate closes with a low, final sound.

Ms. Vale straightens. “We’ll be in touch tomorrow.”

“Thank you,” Tamara says before I can answer.

Her voice is steady, responsible, with nothing in it I need to manage. The conservators roll the crate toward the elevator. For a moment, I have the absurd instinct to stop them. To say never mind. To put it back on the wall damaged and crooked and present, because damaged and present is still easier than gone.

Then Tamara’s fingers move once against mine.

The living room feels larger without the painting. Without the Kandinsky, the symmetry Elena loved loosens. The marble looks colder. The furniture more exposed. Tamara’s half-finished sketches sit on the side table near the windows, warm neutrals and lighting notes and pencil marks across tracing paper.

The old room and the new one facing each other across an absence.

Tamara releases my hand slowly. “I’m sorry.”

“I know.”

“I’m not going to keep saying it.”

“Good.”

Her mouth curves faintly, but her eyes are still too bright.

“I mean, I will probably keep thinking it.”

“Don’t keep punishing yourself.” I want to say more, but my phone pings from the kitchen, the sound pulling us both back.

Tamara follows me.

The message is short.

Yuri:

I have all the information we need.

Tamara reads it across my shoulder. The kitchen is silent around us. Burned butter. Cold coffee. Uneven crêpes cooling on the plate.

Then she says, “I want to know everything.”

She holds my gaze defiantly, daring me. A slow smile moves through me before it reaches my mouth.

“There she is.”