Chapter 3
Daniil
Volna had been the correct political choice and possibly the wrong security choice.
Our restaurant, Zhar-Ptitsa would have been easier to lock down. Separate entrances. Fewer public rooms. A kitchen corridor wide enough to hold three armed men without making them look like armed men.
But Lev had chosen Volna.
The bath-house and eating hall stood on Brighton Beach Avenue, close enough to Sokolov House that no one could mistake whose ground the Orlovs had entered. Closing it would suggest fear. Moving the meeting would suggest worse.
So the dining room downstairs remained full. The baths remained open. Men argued over cards behind frosted glass while steam rolled beneath the doors. Plates struck tables. Vodka poured. Music drifted up from the second floor, muffled by carpet and concrete.
Above it, the third floor belonged to me.
The elevator had been locked out at four. A key was required to reach us from the lobby. Two men stood at the west stair. Two more guarded the east service stair. The dumbwaiter had been disabled, though Arkady had objected on the grounds that no assassin could fit inside it.
I had told him that Nikita probably could.
Nikita had informed me he lacked the flexibility.
I checked the elevator myself.
Then the stairs.
Then the locks on the service doors.
The private floor held two dining rooms. The Samovar Room faced the street and would hold dinner. The Birch Room stood at the rear, windowless and quiet, with walls paneled in pale wood. Lev and Mikhail would meet there after dinner to compare their lists of compromised men.
I opened the Birch Room’s rear service door.
A narrow passage ran behind the kitchens and joined the east stair. One guard stood at the junction. Another waited beyond the outer door. Both men straightened when they saw me.
“No one enters this passage after seven,” I said.
They nodded.
“Not kitchen staff. Not family. Not someone you recognize.”
Another nod.
“If my father asks?”
The nearer guard hesitated.
“You call me,” I said. “Then you open it.”
“Yes, Daniil.”
I shut the door and tested the electronic latch twice.
When I turned, Nikita stood inside the Birch Room with one shoulder against the wall. Dark suit. Green eyes. The expression of a man who had found entertainment where none should exist.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
I waited.
He smiled. “Are you planning to search the Orlov delegation yourself?”
“No.”
“Pity.”
I walked past him.
He followed me into the corridor. “Mikhail and Anton would object, naturally. But perhaps Ksenia could receive more individualized attention. A pat down? Checking for weapons, of course. I thought you might want to do the honors.”
I stopped.
Nikita stopped too.
“You have work,” I said.
“I finished it.”
“Find more.”
“Should I arrange a female guard, then?”
“Ksenia will not be searched.”
“Of course not. Diplomatic incident.”
His smile widened as he stepped around me. “Unless she requests it.”
I watched him continue toward the Samovar Room.
“Nikita.”
He looked over his shoulder.
“If you say one word to her—”
“I would never interfere in my brother’s private affairs.”
“There are no private affairs.”
“That should make silence easy.”
He disappeared through the dining-room door.
I checked the corridor again. It had not changed since the previous inspection. The doors remained locked. The cameras remained fixed. The guards remained where I had placed them.
I still went to the security office.
It occupied a small room beside the west stair, built originally for liquor storage. Six monitors showed the covered entrance, both stairs, the private corridor, the elevator, and the rear service passage.
Arkady sat before them. His jacket was open. A bandage covered the cut on his forearm from the garage.
“Anything?” I asked.
“Nothing.”
I leaned over his shoulder and checked each feed. Vehicles moved beneath the entrance camera. Staff used the first-floor corridors. The private floor stayed empty except for our men.
Arkady pointed at the camera showing the Samovar Room.
“Angle is wrong.”
“For what?”
“If you want a view up Ksenia’s dress.”
I looked at him.
His expression remained flat.
“Could mount one lower,” he continued. “Under the table. Better resolution.”
“You and Nikita have both decided to become idiots today.”
“We were always idiots. You were too busy being responsible to notice.”
“Believe me, I noticed.”
He turned in the chair and studied me. Arkady’s humor rarely improved anyone’s mood. That was not its purpose.
“When you’re Pakhan, you can punish us.”
The words landed harder than he intended.
Or perhaps exactly as hard.
Arkady looked back at the monitors. “Until then, you just have to suffer.”
I straightened.
The entrance remained clear. The guards remained alert. No one reached the third floor without passing three separate points of control.
The plan was sound.
My unease had nothing to do with the plan.
I had not seen Ksenia since Yelena’s engagement reception. I remembered the dark color of her dress that night. The set of her mouth while she watched my sister accept a future no one should have chosen for her. Ksenia had looked at me once across the room.
I had looked away first.
That had been easier than allowing myself to keep looking.
“Cars,” Arkady said.
Three black vehicles turned beneath Volna’s covered entrance.
Mikhail Orlov stepped out first.
I registered him, assessed the vehicle behind him, and watched Anton follow.
Then Ksenia emerged, and the discipline of the previous hour became theoretical.
Her dress was dark green. Long sleeves. High collar. Fitted closely enough that every step changed its shape against her body. Her chestnut hair fell over one shoulder, the light catching warmer strands in it.
I had seen her dressed for weddings, funerals, New Year dinners, and formal celebrations. I had seen her beside Mikhail often enough that her presence should have been ordinary.
There was nothing ordinary about her. Nothign at all.
Arkady leaned back in his chair. “Maybe the camera angle is fine.”
“Shut up.” And I went down to meet the delegation.
Up close, Ksenia was even more devastating. She looked at my face. Not past me. Not toward the entrance. At me.
Her hazel-green eyes narrowed slightly, as though she had caught me doing something suspicious.
Perhaps I was.
I went down the steps to meet them.
“Mikhail Mikhailovich.” I offered my hand.
Mikhail took it. His grip was firm. “Daniil.”
“Anton.”
Anton shook my hand next. His gaze moved over the entrance, the men at the doors, the parked vehicles. He approved of nothing openly.
“Ksenia.”
“Daniil.”
Her voice was warm. Her expression was not.
She looked beyond me toward the lobby. “How many entrances reach the third floor?”
No greeting beyond my name. No polite delay.
“Three.”
“Elevator?”
“Locked. Key access only.”
“Stairs?”
“West stair is controlled from the lobby and third floor. East service stair has guards at both ends.”
“Kitchen access?”
“Restricted.”
She stepped closer. The scent of her reached me. Something clean with a trace of geranium beneath it.
“Restricted how?”
“No staff on the third floor except one waiter.”
“Who?”
“Leonid Gusev.”
Recognition moved through Mikhail’s expression. “He was here when Lev bought his first share in Volna.”
“He was,” I said. “He has served both families for years.”
Ksenia did not look reassured. “That makes him familiar. It doesn’t make him safe.”
Anton glanced at her. Mikhail’s mouth shifted at one corner.
I should have objected. Instead, I liked the question.
“He was checked when he arrived,” I said. “He has no phone. His service route begins in the kitchen, passes the west guard station, and ends at the Birch Room. He will not enter the rear passage. He will not remain inside after serving.”
“And the plates?”
“Prepared under supervision.”
“The room?”
“Swept twice.”
“How recently?”
“Twenty-two minutes ago.”
She considered me.
“Would you like to inspect it yourself?” I asked. “I can offer you a magnifying glass? A kit to dust for prints?”
“Would that offend you?”
“No.”
“That’s disappointing.”
“Do you usually try to offend your hosts before dinner?”
“Not always. Only on special occasions.”
Heat tightened low in my body.
Mikhail looked between us. He saw too much. He always had.
Anton appeared less entertained.
“The security is sufficient,” I said. “More than sufficient.”
Ksenia’s brows rose. “You expect me to accept that because you said it?”
“Yes.”
A pause.
Nikita would have called it combative. Arkady would have called it foreplay and earned a broken nose.
Ksenia moved one step nearer. “That answer probably works very well for you.”
“It usually does.”
“Not with me.”
“Yes. I’m beggining to see that.”
Something changed in her eyes. Not softness. Interest.
She looked past me at the two men by the entrance, then at the camera above the doors. Her gaze tracked its range. She checked the parked vehicles and the street beyond them.
“Fine,” she said.
“Fine?”
“For now.”
“I’m relieved.”
“You don’t look relieved.”
“I try not to lose control in public.”
Color touched her cheeks.
Very faint. Gone almost at once.
It was enough.
She turned toward the entrance. Anton followed her. Mikhail remained beside me for half a second.
“My daughter dislikes being reassured,” he said quietly.
“She prefers evidence.”
His eyes settled on me. “Yes.”
Then he went inside.
I followed the Orlovs into Volna with Ksenia’s scent still caught in my breath.
Ksenia sat across from me, which was either an accident or one of Nikita’s little tricks.
Lev occupied one end of the table. Mikhail sat at the other. I took the chair at my father’s right, with Anton beside his. Ksenia sat between Anton and Nikita. Arkady completed the table opposite her.
The Samovar Room had been designed to flatter men who believed themselves important. Dark wood. Heavy curtains. Brass lamps throwing warm light over crystal and silver. An antique samovar stood on the sideboard, keeping water hot, its metal polished enough to reflect distorted faces.
Ksenia looked incredible.