Page 151 of Mafia King’s Dangerous Vow

Aleksander sits with his back to the wall. His coat is unbuttoned, his expression calm, his attention everywhere. To anyone else, he would look like a man waiting for his wife to finish her coffee before taking her somewhere expensive and private.

I know better.

His phone lies faceup near his hand. Every few minutes, the screen lights with a message from Yuri.

A patrol car rolls slowly past the school during regular dismissal, routine enough that no one looks twice. School-zone presence. Nothing more.

At seven after three, Aleksander reads a message and says, “Regular dismissal is nearly clear.”

I nod because I don’t trust my voice.

A boy comes out wearing a red hat with bear ears. For half a second, my lungs seize.

Not him.

Of course not him.

Ivan is inside at the after-school art program until four-thirty. Listed present. Confirmed by a woman inside the building who can move where Aleksander’s men cannot.

The last cluster of children clears the sidewalk. Parents drift away. The school doors close again, and the street becomes quieter.

After-school has started.

His screen wakes again. “Ivan is in the art room.”

The coffee has gone cold. I keep holding it anyway. Aleksander notices the cup bending. “Do you want water?”

“No.”

“You have not had anything.”

“I’m fine.”

He shifts his hand slightly closer on the table.

At three-forty-one, a delivery truck stops too close to the curb. One of Aleksander’s men crosses the street to speak to the driver. The truck moves within thirty seconds.

At five after four, the Meridian vehicle still hasn’t moved.

At four-ten, a woman walks up the school steps.

She doesn’t look like someone sent to steal a child. She wears a camel coat and flat black boots, her dark hair pulled back at the nape of her neck. She carries a leather tote over one shoulder and a phone in her hand.

Calm. Neat. Ordinary. A woman another mother might trust in a lobby.

A new message appears.

“Kornelya Orlov,” he says.

I watch her pull open the side entrance door and wonder, absurdly, who she is when she is not walking into a school to take someone else’s child.

The door closes behind her, and there is no room left for curiosity.

“You’re letting her go in?” I ask.

“For now.”

I turn on him. “She’s going to sign him out.”