Page 21 of Dark King Daddy

I glued the fourth window frame. The fifth. I began assembling the tiny flower pots, gluing paper stems into them, attaching leaves one by one with the tweezers. The leaves were the size of my thumbnail. Each one required both hands, both eyes, and the full measure of my attention. For minutes at a time, I thought about nothing except whether the leaf was straight.

My phone buzzed. Zoe.

What are you wearing tomorrow to see the terrifying Sokolov?

I picked up the phone with glue on my fingers. I typed: I’m attending for Papa. Not for Daniil Sokolov.

That’s not what I asked.

It’s what I’m answering.

You’re deflecting.

I’m gluing tiny leaves. I don’t have time for deflection.

A pause. Then: Wear the dark green dress. The one with the collar. You look like yourself in that one.

I looked at the message. Zoe had opinions about my clothes the way she had opinions about everything — freely, confidently, and usually correctly. The dark green dress. She was right. I looked like myself in that dress. Not Orlov furniture. Not a Pakhan’s daughter deployed for display. Myself.

Maybe, I typed.

The phone buzzed again. Different sender.

Father.

Seven tomorrow. I need you with me, Ksyusha.

I read it twice. The same words he had spoken in his office, reduced now to text on a screen. The diminutive looked different in type — smaller, more formal, as though the written word couldn’t quite carry the warmth his voice had given it.

I typed: Of course, Papa.

I sent it. I put the phone face-down on the table.

On the television, Kiki was learning to fly. She was falling, mostly. Getting up. Trying again. The animation was hand-drawn, the colors soft, the movement imperfect in the way that old animation was imperfect — every frame slightly different from the last, every line carrying the evidence of a human hand.

I looked at the miniature greenhouse on the coffee table. Four walls. A floor. Five window frames. Six tiny flower pots with paper stems and leaves. The beginning of something that would sit on my shelf when it was finished, small and useless and mine.

I began packing the pieces back into the box. Carefully, one by one, wrapping the fragile parts in tissue paper. The glue would need to set overnight on what I had already assembled. I could continue tomorrow. Or the day after. Or next week. There was no deadline. No inspector. No funding requirement. No one waiting for this to be finished except me.

Tomorrow I would wake up early. I would shower, do my hair, put on makeup that made me look composed rather than exhausted. I would choose the dark green dress, because Zoe was right and I knew it. I would drive to Volna and stand beside my father and be the Orlov Pakhan’s daughter — polished, useful, steady in a room full of men who measured everything in territory and debt and blood.

Daniil would be there. He would stand at Lev’s right hand, wearing a dark suit and a white shirt, his face carrying that composure I had watched for fifteen years. He would look at the room. He would look at my father. He would look at Anton.

He would look through me exactly as he always had.

I only wished the thought did not disappoint me.

Chapter 3

Daniil

Volna had been the correct political choice and possibly the wrong security choice.

Our restaurant, Zhar-Ptitsa would have been easier to lock down. Separate entrances. Fewer public rooms. A kitchen corridor wide enough to hold three armed men without making them look like armed men.

But Lev had chosen Volna.

The bath-house and eating hall stood on Brighton Beach Avenue, close enough to Sokolov House that no one could mistake whose ground the Orlovs had entered. Closing it would suggest fear. Moving the meeting would suggest worse.