Page 40 of Hunt Me, Daddy

Aleksei lifted his glass. “Does that mean we respond inappropriately?”

“You once bought a stolen painting because you liked the frame.”

“It was an excellent frame.”

Nikolai laughed loudly enough that two men near the end of the bar looked over, then looked away immediately because they enjoyed keeping their teeth inside their skulls.

Sergei’s gaze flicked to me. “You missed lunch.”

“I’m devastated.”

“You also missed Maxim’s call.”

“Am I in trouble?”

Nikolai leaned closer, lowering his voice in a way that did absolutely nothing to make it quiet. “He used the full-name tone.”

I grimaced. “Ivan Dmitri Morozov?”

“Worse,” Aleksei said. “He paused between each word.”

“Ah,” I said. “So this is an execution.”

“Probably,” Sergei said.

Nikolai clapped me on the shoulder hard enough to move a lesser man. “I’ll say nice things at your funeral.”

“You don’t know any.”

“I’ll improvise.”

“That is exactly what worries me.”

From the back hallway, Maxim’s voice cut through the room. “Ivan.”

Nikolai’s grin widened. “Dead man walking.”

I gave him my glass before I had taken a drink from it. “If I die, delete my browser history.”

Aleksei’s mouth curved. “You have browser history?”

“Of course not. I only wanted to see which of you panicked first.”

Nikolai glanced at Sergei. Sergei did not blink.

“Coward,” I told Nikolai, and went to meet my eldest brother.

The back room was quieter, though the Iron Wolf’s pulse still reached it through the walls. The round table sat under low amber light, the wood gleaming dark and scarred beneath it.Maxim occupied the chair opposite the door, as usual. He always sat there because it gave him the best view of every entrance and because eldest brothers sometimes have the pathological need to make seating arrangements ominous.

I sat down without waiting for permission and that earned me a hard stare, to which I smiled faintly.

“That expression is very bad for your forehead,” I said. “Deep lines. Riley will blame stress. I will blame your personality.”

Maxim did not smile. “We need to talk about the Orlovs.”

“Also bad for your forehead.”

“Ivan.”