Page 75 of Santa Daddy
Too empty. The music from the reception hall sounded muffled, like someone had shut a door.
I started back.
Halfway down the hall, voices drifted from behind the EXIT door.
Low. Urgent. Russian.
I froze.
I shouldn’t.
I did.
I edged closer, careful not to let my heels echo, and pressed my ear to the crack.
“…now,” a male voice hissed. “We have window. One shot and it is done.”
“Not until signal,” another snapped. “You want to die tonight, be my guest.”
“You saw him,” the first argued. “He is weak. Marrying this…girl. We end him now, we take what is ours.”
Weak.
Girl.
That would be me and my favorite murderer.
My heart jackhammered.
“Orders are orders,” a third voice cut in, cooler. “We wait. We do not fire until the toast.”
Footsteps. A scrape. My breath lodged in my throat.
I stepped back fast on instinct.
The heel of my shoe hit something—a box shoved against the wall for decoration. It tipped. Crashed.
The conversation on the other side of the door cut off.
Shit.
I bolted.
Back down the hall, toward the double doors to the reception. My brain spat useless options—play dumb, say you got lost, pretend you didn’t hear.
The doors swung open before I got there.
Konstantin filled the doorway, one hand on the frame, eyes ice-sharp.
“You are out of time,” he said, English clipped, his accent threading the words. “I told you two minutes.”
“I got lost,” I lied. My voice sounded breathless.
His gaze flicked over my shoulder, to the EXIT door, back to my face.
He didn’t believe me.
“Later,” he said under his breath, fingers closing around my elbow. “We talk later.”
