8. Every time you’re afraid. （Aleksander）
EVERY TIME YOU’RE AFRAID. (ALEKSANDER)
“You look like shit.” Mikhail lowers his sunglasses just enough to glare at me over the rim of his coffee cup.
“Good morning to you too, brother.”
“It’s forty degrees and raining,” I say, buttoning my coat. “And you’re standing outside looking like you lost a fight with tequila.”
“That was a tactical decision.” His voice is rough enough to strip paint. “Your wedding had an open bar. I adapted to the environment.”
“You made an ass of yourself.”
“Also tactical.” He takes another sip of coffee. “Someone had to be the disaster so people would stop staring at you.”
I stop buttoning my coat.
Mikhail plays the reckless one. The drunk. The chaos magnet. But underneath the expensive suits and spectacularly bad decisions, he notices far too much.
“You were wound so tight last night,” he continues, “I thought you were going to snap somebody’s neck during the vows.”
“I survived.”
“Barely.” Then, more quietly, “Bride survive, too?”
“She’s upstairs.”
“I assumed that from the fact you’re down here alone. Question is whether she’s settled in or planning your murder.”
“Probably both.”
“Good.” His grin comes back. “Means she has survival instincts.”
I check my phone instead of responding. Messages from Igor, Yuri, Yakov. Katarina sent a GIF of a ball and chain.
Subtle.
“She wants to go back to work,” I say.
For once, Mikhail doesn’t make it funny. “She built something real. This makes sense.”
“I told her she stays inside until security protocols are in place.”
“There it is.” He points at me with the coffee cup. “The control problem.”
“It’s not control. It’s risk management.”
“Sure.” He drains the rest of the coffee. “And vodka is hydration.”
“You done?”
Mikhail sighs and pushes himself upright. “Aleks. You can lock down territory, money, supply routes. You start trying to lock down women like Tamara, and you’ll end up with a wife who’s technically present and completely gone.”
“The Colombians are circling.”
“She’ll suffocate if you cage her.” He adjusts his sunglasses. “Fair warning.”
“I’m not caging her.”
“You’re thinking about it, though.”
I don’t deny it quickly enough.
He stops playing the idiot. “Whatever Kalinin used to make her obey,” he says quietly, “it’s probably bad.”
He is right, which is inconvenient enough to irritate me.
“She wouldn’t tell me.”
He shrugs. “Based on how terrified she looked walking toward you, it wasn’t small.”
I can handle anger. Defiance, too. Fear is harder to put down.
David Kalinin put his daughter in a cathedral looking like she was heading toward an execution. She doesn’t trust me enough to tell me why.
Mikhail heads for the elevator, then pauses.
“Oh, and for the record?” he adds, because he enjoys pressing where he shouldn’t. “You’re already too invested.”
The doors close before I answer.
The car is warm when I slide into the back seat behind Yuri. Rain streaks across the windows as we pull into Manhattan traffic. Igor’s message waits on the screen; I leave it unopened.
She wrapped both hands around the mug this morning and looked furious that she needed anything from me.
I know what it is to be kept alive against your will.
After Elena died, I stopped caring whether I survived. Igor dragged me back from that hell one withdrawal at a time. It kept me alive. It also taught me exactly how it feels when your choices stop belonging to you.
This morning, Tamara asked about work carefully, like she was negotiating for permission instead of talking about her own life.
I called a delay caution because it sounded better than fear.
“Boss?” Yuri glances at me in the rearview mirror. “You’ve been staring at your phone for ten minutes.”
I look down. Igor’s message is still unopened. Instead, I pull up Tamara’s portfolio.
Mikhail, annoyingly, had been right.
Penthouses. Private residences. Boutique hospitality projects.
I zoom in on one—a library in a Tribeca townhouse. Books actually used instead of color-coordinated for display. Lamps positioned beside chairs someone would realistically sit in for hours. The room feels lived in without sacrificing elegance.
Every detail says the same thing: She pays attention. Not to status. To people.
She’s talented, and I treated that talent like a scheduling complication.
I close the portfolio. Then open it again.
“Change of plans,” I say finally. “Take me to Volkov Enterprises first.”
Yuri changes course without comment.
Volkov Enterprises rises through the rain twenty minutes later—all glass and steel arrogance. The receptionist waves me through without announcement.
Family privilege.
I take the private elevator directly to the executive floor.
Nikolai looks up from his desk as I walk in. “This should be interesting,” he says immediately. “You have that face.”
“What face?”
“The one that says you’re about to justify something stupid with logic.”
I ignore the chair he gestures toward.
“Tamara wants to keep working.”
Nikolai looks almost entertained. “And?”
“And I told her she can work from home.”
“That go over well?”
“She didn’t throw anything.”
He raises an eyebrow, silent.
I exhale sharply. “I need to know whether continuing her business is manageable from a security standpoint.”
Nikolai looks like he’s deciding how gently to call me an idiot. “Of course it is,” he says finally.
I frown.
“Her schedule’s predictable. Locations can be secured. Frankly, monitored movement is easier than a resentful wife trapped in a penthouse.”
“She’s not resentful.”
Nikolai gives me the dignity of allowing me to correct myself.
“She’s furious,” I admit.
“There we go.” He stands and moves toward the windows overlooking the city. “Keep her locked up long enough and she’ll start treating this marriage like a prison sentence.”
“I’m trying to protect her.”
“No,” Nikolai says calmly. “You’re trying to eliminate uncertainty. That’s not the same thing.”
I dislike the accuracy immediately.
This morning Tamara expected me to take one more piece of her life and call it necessary.
I did.
“You don’t need her love,” Nikolai says. “But you do need cooperation, and you won’t get it by making her life smaller every time you’re afraid.”
Afraid. I would rather he called me controlling.
I pull out my phone and call Yuri.
“Boss?”
“Set it up,” I say. “Security protocols for Tamara’s business. Transportation, site coverage, client vetting. I want her operational again as soon as possible.”
“Understood.”
I hang up.
Nikolai doesn’t bother hiding his satisfaction. “Glad to see you pulled your head out of your ass before the two-week mark.”
“You and Mikhail are betting on my marriage now?”
“Obviously.”
I decide not to ask how much money is involved. “Touching. I’m glad near-catastrophic family history brought the two of you so close.”
“Mikhail said you’d get emotionally compromised first,” Nikolai says. “I said you’d become a control freak.”
“Who’s winning?”
“You’re making it very competitive.”
I head for the door. “Enjoy your winnings.”
“Aleksander.”
I pause.
“I watched you disappear for two years after Elena,” he says quietly. “I’m not doing that again.” For once, I let him finish. “She’s not Elena, and you’re not the man you were back then.”
If I answer, he will hear too much. So I leave.
“Move Tamara’s protocols to priority,” I tell Yuri when I get into the car.
He doesn’t ask why.
“How fast can you have her operational?”
He thinks before he answers, calculating. “A few days.”
Somewhere between the cathedral and this elevator, I had started making my wife smaller and calling it protection.