8. The Smiling Knife
The Smiling Knife
Roman
Men who are afraid sweat.
Men who are guilty talk too much.
Men who are planning something dangerous remain calm.
Father Angelo is calm.
Too calm.
I watch him from across the club floor as conversations resume around us. Velvet laughter. Crystal glasses. Predators pretending to be patrons.
He moves easily between groups—offering a hand on a shoulder, a soft word, a suggestion disguised as counsel.
No one stiffens when he approaches.
That’s his advantage.
He doesn’t look like a threat.
He looks like absolution.
Vera stands beside me, spine straight, chin level. She has learned the rhythm of this room quickly. Smile measured. Eyes alert. Never lingering too long in one direction.
She adapts.
That makes her more dangerous than the men staring at her.
Angelo’s gaze returns to us again—brief, assessing.
I file it away.
Too calm.
Too pleased when he noticed my bare ring finger.
He saw opportunity in that absence.
Which means he’s thinking in terms of permanence.
Or vulnerability.
Neither pleases me.
Orlov joins me near the bar once Angelo drifts away.
“Effective display,” he murmurs.
“It wasn’t a display,” I say.
“It was,” he replies smoothly. “And it was necessary.”
His eyes move subtly across the room.
“Rizzi’s rhetoric will cool after tonight.”
“Or escalate,” I counter.
Orlov’s mouth curves faintly.
“They don’t want war with you.”
“They already tested my perimeter.”
“A test isn’t war.”
No.
It’s invitation.
“Angelo seems unbothered,” Orlov adds casually.
“Too unbothered.”
He tilts his head.
“You suspect him?”
“I suspect anyone who isn’t reacting appropriately.”
“Suspicion is useful,” Orlov says. “Paranoia is expensive.”
I glance at him.
He doesn’t flinch.
“Well phrased.”
He lowers his voice slightly.
“There is a cleaner solution.”
I already dislike the direction of this.
“Define cleaner.”
“Remove the liability.”
The word lands softly between us.
Liability.
My gaze hardens.
“Clarify,” I say evenly.
Orlov meets my eyes without hesitation.
“Bellini’s daughter is the axis of escalation. Remove her, and Rizzi loses narrative momentum. Bellini loses leverage. The city stabilizes.”
He speaks like he’s discussing quarterly losses.
Elegant.
Measured.
Sanitized.
I hear something beneath it.
Ambition.
“By remove,” I say, “you mean kill.”
Orlov doesn’t blink.
“If necessary.”
The music swells around us.
Laughter erupts at a nearby table.
Violence wrapped in velvet.
“You advised taking her,” I remind him.
“Yes.”
“And now you advise eliminating her.”
“I advise preserving your reign.”
There it is.
Not justice.
Not truth.
Power.
He studies my expression carefully.
“She is not ours,” he continues. “She is a symbol tied to another bloodline.”
“And?” I ask quietly.
“And symbols are effective only while useful.”
My jaw tightens.
I think of her stitching a wound without trembling.
Of her demanding medical corridors instead of mercy.
Of the way she stood in this room without lowering her gaze.
Not ours.
That phrase lingers unpleasantly.
“She remains alive,” I say.
Orlov inclines his head.
“As you wish.”
But there’s a flicker in his eyes.
Disappointment.
Not moral.
Strategic.
I file that away too.
The club thins near midnight.
Vera has not faltered once.
When I escort her toward the exit, Angelo watches again.
Still calm.
Still measuring.
As if he knows something I don’t.
I dislike asymmetry.
Back in the car, my phone vibrates.
Unknown sender.
Encrypted relay.
I open it without hesitation.
A single line of text.
Your brother begged your father to stop.
The words hit like a physical blow.
I read them again.
And again.
Viktor glances at me in the rearview mirror.
“Problem?”
“Silence,” I say.
I scroll.
No metadata.
No obvious trace.
Just the message.
Your brother begged your father to stop.
Stop what?
The meeting?
The deal?
The leak?
Luka never begged.
He argued.
He persuaded.
He believed.
Begging implies desperation.
Implies foreknowledge.
Implies he knew something was wrong.
I stare out the tinted window as the city slides past.
If Luka suspected betrayal before he died—
Then the leak wasn’t impulsive.
It was seeded.
Planned.
And if he begged our father to stop—
Then my father knew something too.
A slow, cold realization spreads through me.
Bellini channels may have carried the coordinates.
But what if they weren’t the origin?
What if the breach predates exile?
Predates Bellini tension?
What if the rot started inside our own walls?
Inside our own bloodline?
I close my eyes briefly.
Replaying old conversations.
Old board meetings.
Old alliances brokered under the guise of modernization.
Luka wanted reform.
Our father resisted pace, not direction.
But who else stood to gain from Luka’s death?
Who consolidates power when heirs fracture?
Orlov’s words echo faintly.
Remove the liability.
Symbols are effective only while useful.
My eyes open.
The city reflects in the glass like fractured light.
The leak may not be external.
It may not even be recent.
It may be older.
Deeper.
Embedded in legacy.
I look down at the message one more time.
Your brother begged your father to stop.
The war I prepared for may not be the real one.
And if betrayal runs through Koval blood—
Then I have been hunting in the wrong house.