Page 99 of Boardroom Mask

I stand there for a moment, gun still raised, listening to the nothing that follows.

It stretches, the silence. It fills the alley like standing water, rising around my ankles, then higher and higher still. The man’schin rests on his chest in a posture that could be mistaken for sleep if you didn’t notice the red-black hole between his eyebrows or the way his fingers have already gone slack against the zip-ties.

I lower the Makarov.

My hand isn’t shaking. That bothers me only because it proves something I’ve been trying to disprove for weeks: that I am perfectly capable of this. The mechanics are second nature. I did not hesitate. Not so long ago, Elliot Wilkinson’s orbital bone cracked under my fist and I feltgoodabout it. This stranger zip-tied to a folding chair in a piss-soaked alley in Brooklyn is now dead because I pointed a gun at his face and pulled the trigger without my pulse climbing a single beat per minute.

So why isshestill breathing?

Jillian Pierce ought to be dead, too. There are so many ways I could do it. A gun, a knife—fuck, I’ve had my hand literally around her throat and I couldn’t bring myself to squeeze. I’ve stood over her in the dark while she slept and watched the rise and fall of her chest and known exactly how easy it would be.

Yet I can’t.

My father could, and what am I if not my father’s son? He murdered the woman he loved and buried her body somewhere out there in the city, then went to work the next day. Am I him? The evidence says yes. So too does the blood cooling on a folding chair ten feet away and the scabs on my knuckles from beating Elliot Wilkinson senseless.

But I can’t do to Jillian what he did to Elena. Not with a gun, not with pills, not with my bare hands. Not even if Lukas held a blade to my throat and counted down from ten.Do it or else.

Which doesn’t make me better than him. Sparing one life doesn’t cancel out taking another. Mercy toward the woman I want doesn’t redeem the violence I’ve done to everyone else. It just means my cruelty is selective, which is maybe the worst kind.

Because there’s no telling who it will choose next.

I tuck the Makarov into my waistband, turn my back on the body, and walk to the car.

Afon doesn’t say a word until we’re back over the bridge. The Williamsburg’s suspension cables tick past the windshield like the bars of a cage, and the East River below is oil-black.

“Your father worries about you,” he says at last.

I snort a derisive laugh. “No, he doesn’t. Schemes? Manipulates? Sure. But he does notworryabout me.”

Afon bobs a shoulder. “Different facets of the same thing, when it’s your son.”

“How would you know? You don’t have a son, Afon.”

“No.” He stops at a red light and watches it bleed across the hood. “But I have a nephew.”

I think of Mat in the back booth of that speakeasy on East 4th, the last time I saw him in person. He was the smarter of the two of us: He knew to run before the Bratva could sink its hooks into him. I never had that choice, and even if I did, I’m not sure if I would’ve been wise enough to take it.

“Mat’s a good man,” I say. It’s partially true—well, sometimes; Mat is cut from the same cloth as me, even if he’s made better decisions with the hand he was dealt. But I also say it as bait. I’m curious where Afon is steering this.

Afon’s jaw works beneath the heavy shelf of his cheekbone. “Mat’s acleverman. Good? I’m not as sure.” He accelerates through the intersection with the light still yellow. “He was supposed to come into the family proper. His father—my brother—wanted that for him. Instead, he gets a law degree and a corner office and thinks he’s above it all.”

“Maybe he just wanted something different.”

He clucks his tongue dismissively. “That’s not an option. Not when you’re choosing who you are. The boy’s lost his way.” He glances at me. “Family’s important, Kirill. Gotta stick by your blood. Mat will learn that, too, sooner or later. Just like you’re learning it now.”

I turn my head and stare out the passenger window at a row of shuttered storefronts sliding by, each one gated and dark. A closed flower shop. A closed barbershop. A closed everything.

Family’s important.Lukas would say the same thing. I’m not sure I agree with the sentiment. But I keep that to myself. Some disagreements are better left unsaid.

Afon pulls up to the curb outside my building and stops. The dashboard clock reads 4:41 A.M. I reach for the door handle.

“Kirill.”

I stop, but I don’t turn.

Afon keeps his hands on the wheel, eyes forward. He doesn’t look at me. “A piece of advice. Free of charge.”

“I didn’t realize you gave those out.”