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I need both men to stand with me. If they will not, I will still move. I know better than most that when you lose control of the narrative, you end up dead.

I think of my father and the thought tastes like rust. He died in shame. An FBI informant—or so they said.

The families found out and they did what families do when a Pakhan sells his own blood to the government. They took him out together.

No trial.

No last words worth remembering.

Just a hole and a lesson that every man in this city still repeats when they think I cannot hear them.

I will not die like that. I will not leave a name that other men spit on.

The diner sits off the highway like it has been waiting for worse men than truckers.

Bikes. Long-haul rigs. One clean city car already in the lot, black, unremarkable, exactly the kind of thing Maxim would choose when he does not want to advertise.

I park the Mercedes at an angle that gives me the exit and the door in the same glance. An old habit. A good habit.

Inside, Maxim is already in the back booth. He does not stand. He does not need to.

We both know who I am. We both know why we’re here.

I take the seat opposite him.

“Dmitri.”

“Maxim.”

We exchange the usual small nothings…

Weather. Traffic. A man who still owes him money and will not live long enough to pay it.

The words are polite. The eyes are not. Nikolai arrives a few minutes later. He looks like a man who has already been awake too long.

I watch as Nikolai sits. The waitress knows better than to hover. Three black coffees land on the table and he leaves.

Nikolai does not waste time. “I have a situation back in the city,” he says. “We should get to it.”

I nod.

“The Lucci have been making moves against me,” I say. “Not rumors. Not gossip from street soldiers who want to look useful. One of my men took their money and offered them my schedule, my security, my routes. I put him down. The Lucci general too. They wanted me dead. They still do.”

I let that sit.

“I am not asking you to fight my war for me,” I continue. “I am asking you to stand where we already agreed to stand. If they come for one of us, they come for the structure that has kept this city from tearing itself apart. You both know what happens when that structure fails.”

Maxim turns his cup once on the saucer. “I will need to think about it.”

Nikolai’s mouth is a thin line. “I must be given time as well.”

Time.

I do not have time. Every hour I give them is an hour the Lucci use to find another rat, another politician, another angle on my throat. I want to tell them that. I want to put my hands on the table and remind them what my name has meant in this city since I took it.

But I do not.

I thank my so-called allies.