Page 28 of Mafia King’s Dangerous Vow

“They’ll wait,” I say with more confidence than I feel.

Afterward, the apartment goes back to being enormous and not mine. By noon, Aleksander’s men had recreated most of my studio inside his study without asking me where anything should go. Mikhail had supervised from the doorway, which made the whole thing feel less like a burglary only in the technical sense.

My drafting monitor now sits beside his. Fabric samples cover the conference table. Someone even brought over the brass task lamp I use during late-night revisions.

It should feel considerate. It does a little. That’s the problem.

The lamp sits exactly where I would have put it myself, angled for my right hand and the way I mark up plans late at night.

I can’t decide whether the accuracy is kindness or surveillance.

I spend most of the afternoon trying to focus. The plans blur together. Measurements stop making sense halfway through calculations. I keep looking to the street, where everyone else appears to have permission to leave.

By four o’clock, I give up and wander into the kitchen. If I can’t control my life, maybe I can at least control dinner.

That turns out to be optimistic.

The rice burns on the bottom and stays undercooked on top. The chicken somehow manages to be dry and suspicious at the same time. The vegetables split their loyalties between mush and frostbite depending on which side of the pan they landed on.

It’s catastrophic.

But it’s my catastrophe.

By the time I hear Aleksander’s key in the lock just after seven, I’ve plated the disaster and set the table with grim determination.

The apartment door opens, then Aleksander’s footsteps slow at the edge of the kitchen.

I pretend to adjust silverware.

His attention moves from the table, to the food, to me.

An hour ago I’d still been wearing actual clothes, but somewhere between nearly setting oil on fire and dropping sauce down the front of my blouse, I’d given up and pulled on the nearest clean thing I could find.

Which happened to be his shirt.

Aleksander’s hand stills on the edge of his coat before he finishes taking it off. The shirt hangs loose on me, sleeves rolled twice, collar slipping slightly off one shoulder.

“You cooked.”

“I attempted to cook. Results are inconclusive.”

He shrugs out of his coat and sits down across from me. Up close, he looks like a man who has spent the day making decisions no one will thank him for.

I grew up watching my father come home from days like this. On good days it was meetings and money laundering and strategic threats. On bad days, it was silence.

Despite every effort I made to build a life outside that world, here I am. Married straight back into it.

“It’s chicken,” I offer weakly. “Technically.”

Aleksander cuts into it with the caution of a man defusing explosives.

He takes a bite.

Swallows.

No visible reaction.

“Well?” I ask.