Chapter 2 - A Warning Served ColdI did not remember dropping the phone.
I only remembered Mikhail catching it before it hit the floor.
For a man his size, he moved without sound.
“Who was it?” he asked.
“I don’t know.”
His eyes searched my face, not kindly, not cruelly—efficiently.
“Repeat every word.”
My throat felt scraped raw. “He said… ‘Tell Volkov the boy should have stayed lost.’”
The diner went colder than the rain outside.
Misha buried his face against his father’s coat.
Mikhail lifted one hand.
The bodyguards moved instantly. One locked the front door. Another checked the kitchen exit. A third walked toward the bathrooms with a gun low at his side.
“Hey!” Jerry barked, finally finding his courage. “You can’t just—”
The guard looked at him.
Jerry shut up.
I stepped in front of the counter. “This is still my diner.”
Mikhail turned slowly.
“And someone has just used your phone to threaten my son.”
“Then call the police.”
A dark smile touched his mouth without reaching his eyes.
“The police will arrive after the funeral.”
I hated how believable that sounded.
Misha looked up. “Papa, I want to go home.”
Mikhail crouched until he was eye level with him. The terrifying man vanished, replaced by a father trying not to show fear.
“You will. But first I need to know who touched your day.”
“I told you,” Misha whispered. “I followed the kitten.”
“Where was Ana?”
“At the coat store. She said to wait.”
“Ana told you to wait?”
Misha nodded.
Something broke behind Mikhail’s eyes.
He stood.
One of his men already had a phone to his ear. “We found Ana’s car behind the mall, sir. Empty. Purse inside. No blood.”
Mikhail listened. “Find her before I do.”
The sentence was spoken softly.
That made it worse.
My hands trembled as I picked up the empty plates. I needed something normal. Something human. Soap. Water. Ceramic. Anything but black SUVs and missing nannies.
Mikhail noticed.
“You are afraid of me.”
I laughed once, because panic does strange things. “Shouldn’t I be?”
“Not tonight.”
“Is that supposed to comfort me?”
“No.”
He reached into his coat again, but this time he pulled out a business card. Heavy paper. No company name. Only a number embossed in black.
“If anyone calls again, you use this.”
“I run a diner. I don’t do… whatever this is.”
“You do now.”
“No, I don’t.”
His gaze dropped to my hands.
Not my face.
My hands.
Cracked from dishwater. Red from cold. Ringless.
“You live above the diner,” he said.
My heart slammed. “How do you know that?”
He glanced at the staircase door behind the counter.
“Because you checked it three times since I entered.”
I hated him for noticing.
“I don’t want trouble.”
“Trouble already came to your door, Clara Bennett.”
Before I could answer, one of his men returned from the back hallway.
“Sir.”
Mikhail looked over.
The guard held up a tiny object pinched between gloved fingers.
A silver button.
My stomach twisted.
“That isn’t mine,” I said.
The guard turned it over.
Stamped into the metal was a small black wolf.
Mikhail’s expression became deathly still.
May you like
“That belongs to my house.”
Then Misha whispered, “Ana was wearing buttons like that.”
