Page 48 of Dark King Daddy

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.