Page 76 of Santa Daddy
We stepped back into the hall.
Baranov had his glass raised again. The quartet had shifted to some traditional Russian melody that made the hair on my arms stand up for entirely new reasons.
“To the bride,” he said. “May she give him many sons.”
The crowd lifted their glasses.
I thought of the wordsignaland the phraseone shotand wanted to scream.
Glass shattered.
The sound came from the far end of the room—a high, crystalline crack that silenced the music and stopped every conversation mid-word.
A back window had spiderwebbed, a hole punched dead center, glass tinkling onto the floor.
For one frozen heartbeat, nothing moved.
Then Konstantin had me on the ground, under him, his body covering mine, the breath knocked out of my lungs.
Shouts erupted. Russian, English, curses, orders. Several guns appeared in hands like magic.
“No one shoots,” Konstantin barked, voice snapping across the room.
His tone froze people faster than fear.
A second later, the distant echo of a single gunshot reached us from outside. Too late. Wrong angle. Whoever had fired either missed or hit the wrong glass.
Feet pounded down the hall. One of his men—Yakov, shouted something from the doorway.
“Roof,” he yelled. “Sniper. Gone.”
Of course. A warning. A test. Or a botched execution.
Baranov struggled to his feet, sputtering. “What is this?” he demanded. “On holy night? In church?”
All eyes went to Konstantin.
Still half-over me, he lifted his head, scanning the room, expression like ice over deep water.
“Someone forgets the rules,” he said. “They will remember soon.”
His gaze flicked to Maksim.
For a fraction of a second, just a flicker, I saw it—the tiniest twitch at the corner of his cousin’s mouth. Not quite a smile, not quite a flinch.
Interesting.
“Get up,” Konstantin murmured to me. “Slowly.”
My legs shook as he hauled me upright. His hands were steady. Mine were not.
“That,” he said, too low for anyone else to hear, “is why you do not wander,kotyonok.”
Not because he loved me.
Because I was a walking target with his name on it.
By the timewe finally left, my cheeks hurt from fake smiles and my soul felt like someone had fed it through a paper shredder.
