Chapter 4 #2
He wore a black suit and a narrow black tie. His face looked carved into calm. He listened to condolences. He accepted hands. He inclined his head at the proper moments.
No one embraced him unless he moved first. Most did not try.
They approached him as mourners and left having acknowledged a ruler.
Already, he stood where Lev had stood.
Anton stopped beside me just inside the entrance.
“Ready?” he asked.
“No.”
It was the first honest answer I had given him in days.
His mouth tightened.
“Neither am I. Sister, it’s too much.”
I hugged him, just for a moment, and them we moved forward.
Uncle Kostya walked on Anton’s other side. He had known Lev for decades. Whatever he felt about the dead man remained behind the formal set of his face.
Daniil saw us before we reached him. His attention fixed first on Anton. Then me.
Anton greeted him first.
“Daniil.”
“Anton. Thank you for coming.”
“We stand with you.”
Simple words.
The men around us heard them.
Daniil’s gaze moved to Uncle Kostya. They exchanged formal greetings. Then he faced me.
“Ksenia.”
“I’m sorry, Daniil.”
The same words he had given me.
His expression did not change.
“Thank you.”
I wanted to say more. I did not know what more could survive in a receiving line beneath the eyes of a hundred men. So I moved on.
Lev’s coffin stood open.
I had seen him alive perhaps fifty times. Always controlled. Always occupying more space than his body required. Death had reduced him.
His face had been prepared well, but nothing could restore the force that once lived behind it. His hands rested over his chest. A cross lay between them.
Yelena stood near the coffin, but she had not approached it.
Sal remained beside her. His hand hovered near the small of her back without touching.
Kiryl stood several feet away. He stared at his father’s face with naked dread.
Arkady stood behind him. Nikita spoke quietly with an older mourner near the aisle.
For all the danger attached to the Sokolov name, they looked like what they were.
Five children trying to bury the man who had made them.
Kiryl shifted. His coat collar had folded inward on one side. He did not notice.
Daniil did.
He stepped away from the receiving line for less than ten seconds. He reached Kiryl, straightened the collar, and fastened the top button.
“You’re cold,” he said.
“I’m fine.”
“You’re shaking.”
“I said I’m fine.”
Kiryl sounded angry.
Daniil did not correct him. He smoothed the coat once over Kiryl’s shoulder.
“Stay near me.”
Then he returned to the mourners.
Kiryl watched him go.
My chest tightened. A coat collar meant nothing. A hand on a shoulder meant nothing.
I told myself that and kept watching.
The service began.
The Sokolov siblings approached the coffin before the other mourners.
Daniil went first.
He crossed himself. Bent. Kissed the icon and then his father’s forehead, his face revealing nothing.
Nikita followed. His composure broke only when he straightened. His mouth pulled tight, and he looked away too fast.
Arkady did not move.
He stood at the end of the front pew with both hands closed at his sides. The line stalled behind him.
No one urged him forward.
Arkady could enter a room where armed men waited and look bored. He could threaten someone with a glance and make it feel like a promise already kept.
He could not take three steps toward his father’s coffin.
Daniil returned to him. He did not speak. Instead, he clasped Arkady’s shoulder.
Arkady looked at his brother — at his pakhan.
Something passed between them. Permission, perhaps. Or an order gentle enough to accept.
Arkady moved. One step. Then another.
Daniil walked beside him to the coffin.
I looked down at my gloves.
The possibility took shape against my will.
Perhaps Daniil’s control was not emptiness. Perhaps it was labor.
Perhaps he held himself still because everyone around him needed somewhere to place their weight.
That idea disturbed me more than indifference had.
Yelena approached last. Her face had gone white.
Sal spoke near her ear. I could not hear the words. She shook her head.
Daniil held out his hand. Yelena stared at it, then she took it.
He led her to the coffin.
The moment she saw Lev’s face up close, her body recoiled.
Not dramatically. A small movement. One foot sliding backward. Daniil tightened his grip.
Yelena lifted her chin. Her pale eyes shone.
“You bastard,” she whispered.
The words were for Lev.
Daniil heard them.
He did not tell her to stop. He did not remind her where they stood. He kept holding her hand while she looked down at the father who had loved her like a possession.
Then Yelena leaned into him, only for a second.
Daniil steadied her.
I had spent years calling Daniil indifferent because it was safer than admitting I did not understand him.
Now I watched him hold his family together while burying his father, and doubt moved under my skin like fever.
The service continued. Lev was prayed over, mourned, honored.
No prayer addressed the damage he had done. Funerals did not account for contradiction. They polished a life into language the living could tolerate.
I wondered what people had said about Papa yesterday that I would have disputed if grief had left me strength.
No one was only what their children remembered. No one was only what their enemies survived. No one was any one thing. All of us were everything.
At the end of the service, the coffin closed.
The procession moved east toward Cypress Hills Cemetery. The Orlov cars stayed behind the principal Sokolov vehicles. Police did not block traffic. Sokolov men did.
At the cemetery, the wind was stronger. It flattened coats against legs and worried at the edges of umbrellas.
Lev’s grave waited among older Sokolov stones.
The prayers began.
Tight jaws. Tears. Wailing.
The burial ended. Mourners approached the family in clusters, offering final words before returning to their cars.
The wind carried the smell of wet leaves and turned soil.
Anton had just finished speaking with one of the Sokolov captains when Nikita appeared.
He moved quickly.
That alone was wrong.
Nikita rarely appeared rushed. Even under pressure, he preferred to look as though events had arranged themselves for his convenience.
Now he crossed the wet grass with his phone in his hand and no attention to appearances.
“Daniil.”
Daniil turned.
Nikita looked at Anton, then at me, then at the surrounding mourners.
“Not here,” he said.
Daniil led us between two rows of parked cars. Arkady followed. Uncle Kostya remained near Anton. Kiryl, Yelena, and Sal stayed with the family vehicles.
The cars blocked us from most of the cemetery.
“What happened?” Daniil asked.
“A joint convoy was hit beneath the Hamilton Avenue overpass.”
The cold reached somewhere beneath my coat.
“When?” Anton asked.
“Twenty-three minutes ago. A stolen municipal truck blocked the lead vehicle. Masked gunmen opened fire from both sides.”
“Casualties?”
Nikita’s eyes met Anton’s.
“One Orlov escort dead. Two drivers wounded. One Sokolov, one Orlov. Both alive. The trailers were set on fire before the shooters withdrew.”
“What cargo?” I asked.
“Imports from Orlov Marine. Scheduled for Sokolov distribution.”
The same shared line we had sworn to keep moving.
Daniil’s face went still in a different way. Not grief now. Calculation.
“Who has the scene?” he asked.
“Our men and Anton’s. Police response is being managed.”
Arkady looked back toward Lev’s open grave.
“They did it today?”
“Yes,” Nikita said.
The dirt over Lev’s coffin was still wet and loose.
The Voronins had not waited for the funeral to end. They had chosen the hours when both organizations were occupied, leadership gathered, security divided.
More than that, they had chosen a joint convoy.
A visible artery connecting both families.
“They think we’re weak,” I said.
Daniil looked at me.
“They want everyone else to think it too,” he answered.
Anton took out his phone. “We go to Beard Street.”
“I’ll meet you there,” Daniil said. “Arkady, secure the scene. Nikita, pull traffic cameras from Hamilton Avenue and every approach. I want the municipal truck identified before we arrive.”
Nikita nodded.
Arkady was already moving.
Daniil looked toward his father’s grave once.
Only once.
Then he turned his back on it and walked toward the cars.
We entered Orlov Marine still dressed for Lev Sokolov’s funeral.
Black coats. Black suits. Damp shoes.
Grief followed us into the operations room and was told to wait outside.
The upper floor at 91 Beard Street had once held warehouse offices. Papa had converted the largest room into a secure operations center years ago. No windows. Two long tables. Wall monitors. Maps of the waterfront, trucking routes, storage yards, and port approaches.
By the time Anton, Uncle Kostya, and I arrived, the first footage waited on the central screen.
Daniil came in eight minutes later with Nikita. Arkady remained at the scene.
A paused image filled the screen.
Hamilton Avenue beneath the overpass. Grey concrete. Midday traffic. The joint convoy entering from the left side of the frame.
Two trucks. Lead escort vehicle. Rear escort.
A white municipal utility truck waited near the curb.
“Play it,” Anton said.
The footage moved.
The municipal truck pulled out sharply, blocking both lanes. The escort braked. The first cargo truck struck the rear corner of the municipal vehicle and jackknifed halfway across the road.
A dark van stopped behind the convoy.
Its doors opened.
Masked men came out firing.
There was no audio, but my body supplied it.
Gunshots.
Glass breaking.
Men shouting.
The lead Orlov escort opened his door and returned fire. He made it two steps.
Then he dropped. I stared at the small figure on the screen.
A man had died.
The footage kept moving because cameras did not respect death.
Shooters split around the trucks. Two fired at the cabs. Another covered the rear. Two more carried fuel cans.
Prepared.
Fast.