Page 78 of Mafia King’s Dangerous Vow

Mikhail finishes with the building manager, then slows until he is beside me rather than ahead.

“Mr. Sokolov,” the building manager says, suddenly eager to be useful, “I can have someone take the samples up through the service entrance.”

“The main elevator is fine,” Mikhail says pleasantly. “Ms. Kalinin has a client waiting.”

Ms. Kalinin.

The name on my firm. My contracts. Every project I built before becoming anyone’s wife. My father never once introduced me as anything other than his daughter.

Mikhail says it without looking at me, as though there was never any question which name belonged here.

He steps aside and lets me enter the elevator first. Maya follows and presses twenty-one.

She looks at Mikhail. “You’ve done this before.”

“I’m devastated by how surprised you sound.” His attention remains on her for a moment longer than necessary, then returns to the space beyond her shoulder.

The doors open onto Amelia Healy’s floor.

Her apartment occupies the entire level—twelve rooms of stripped plaster, protected parquet, and expensive indecision. The original architecture is beautiful. High ceilings. Deep moldings. Windows large enough to pull winter light across half the salon.

The current plan is trying very hard to destroy all of it.

Amelia waits beside the fireplace wearing cream trousers and a gray cashmere sweater, arms crossed, tapping her fingers impatiently. Her architect, Malcolm Price, stands beside her holding rolled plans against his chest.

“Tamara,” Amelia says. “You made it.”

The phrasing is polite. The doubt beneath it is not.

“I did.”

She takes Mikhail in. “Mikhail is assisting with project operations,” I say.

He gives her a restrained nod, carries the samples to the temporary worktable, and places them exactly where Maya directs him.

“I wasn’t sure whether your new circumstances would still allow you to oversee the apartment personally.”

Malcolm becomes deeply interested in his plans.

I set my tablet on the table. “My circumstances changed. But this work is still mine.”

Amelia studies me. Then one corner of her mouth shifts by a fraction. “Good. Because I’d like to remove the foyer wall.”

Malcolm exhales. “We discussed opening the apartment.”

The room snaps into focus.

“The wall stays.”

Amelia’s brows rise. Malcolm closes his eyes briefly.

“Tamara.”

I bring up the revised elevation on my tablet. “If we remove it, the elevator opens directly into the salon. Everything arrives at once. The windows, the fireplace, the art, half the dining room. That isn’t impact. It’s noise.”

I turn the tablet toward her. “Widen the opening. Raise the casing. Keep the separation. The apartment needs one controlled moment before it opens.”

Amelia takes the tablet from me. Malcolm leans over her shoulder reluctantly.