Page 1 of The Mad Don
Chapter One
Yana
“You look like you’re expecting someone to detonate,” Max says, appearing at my left shoulder with two glasses of champagne.
He holds one of the glasses out to me. “Here. It’s the good kind.”
I shake my head, and he sighs. The gallery smells like white wine.
I am standing near the east wall, close enough to the entrance to clock every face that walks through, far enough from the crowd that no one tries to hand me a canapé. Annika’s sculptures are arranged on white pedestals under the light, each one more unsettling and beautiful than the last. Red forms that look like they’re mid-collapse, mid-becoming.
The gun sits against my ribs, tucked into the line of my blazer where it won’t print. My hair is pinned up, the way I always wear it at these events, the pin sharp enough to open a throat if thesituation calls for it. I’ve used it before. I don’t plan to tonight, but plans have a way of meaning nothing in this world.
He lowers his arm, but he doesn’t leave. That’s Max. He never quite leaves. He stands beside me instead, following my eyeline out over the crowd, as if he might spot whatever I’m looking for.
“She’s fine, you know,” he says after a moment. His voice drops the performance, goes quieter. “Kirill’s got men around the building.”
“I know.”
“Then what are you watching for?”
I don’t answer because the answer is:everything. I am always watching for everything. For the past two months, someone has been making Kirill’s life difficult. First, a warehouse fire took out half a shipment. Three of his men attacked in their homes on the same night, and then the attempt on the mansion. Two men had jumped in and tried to break into Dimitri’s room. Luckily, Kirill was reading him a bedtime story. The men managed to escape after Kirill shot one of them. I don’t sleep well anymore.
“The Italians,” Max says like he’s reading my mind. He swirls his champagne. “You think it’s them again?”
He was Annika’s art dealer for so long that he almost became family, and he knew of attacks.
“Could be anyone.”
“But you think it’s them.”
I shrug. It really could be anyone.
He looks at me for a beat, then nods slowly. “Right.” He doesn’t push.
My eyes drop to his hand, and I track the motion before I can stop myself, the way his knuckles brush mine when he turns the glass. “You look pale,” he says. “When did you last sleep?”
“I sleep well.”
“Yana.”
“I sleep, Max.”
He looks at me a moment longer. Then his hand moves—gently, just his palm against the center of my back; there is barely pressure. No one else has ever touched me gently. Not in as long as I can remember. The people on my side of the world touch with the intent to restrain or to control. I take his glass out of his hand, not to drink from it but to have something to do with my hands, and our fingers brush again. I look away first.
“Annika told me,” I say. “About you and the painter.”
I should ask to show concern. He and I had known each other for a long time. We could be considered friends
“Ah,” he pauses. “We broke up, actually. Daniel and I.” He says it lightly, like it’s nothing, but he’s watching me when he says it. He is giving me something. Leaving a door ajar. “A few weeks ago.”
I know what he’s doing. He is giving me a chance to step in. Max never forces things, especially when it’s not business. I learned that about him over the years. He wasn’t a passionate chaser; he saved his passion for the things and people he cared about.
“I hope you two find a chance to talk it through,” I say. “You looked good together.”
He opens his mouth, but he closes it, and whatever was in his eyes gets quietly folded away. “Yeah,” he says. “Maybe.”
He takes the glass back from me and crosses the room toward where Annika has just emerged from a conversation in the back, sliding into the space beside her. I watch him go.
