Chapter 2 - THE ENTRANCE OF THE WOLFHalfway through his pie, the ambient murmur of the diner vanished completely.
Three sleek black SUVs slid to a halt right outside the front window, their headlights cutting through the driving rain. Every casual conversation in the room died instantly.
A tall man in a heavy black overcoat stepped through the front door, his presence dominating the room like a looming shadow. Misha’s eyes went wide. He scrambled out of the booth, running across the worn linoleum floor and crying out, "Papa!"
Mikhail Volkov knelt, catching his son. Then his dark, piercing eyes shifted toward the table, taking in the empty plates and then locking onto me.
"You fed my son," Mikhail said. His voice was so terrifyingly quiet it scared me far more than shouting ever could.
"Yes," I answered, refusing to cower. "He was freezing and he was hungry."
His heavily armed enforcers immediately stiffened, hands hovering near their jackets. But I didn't apologize or take a step backward. Misha looked terrified that he had somehow caused me trouble by accepting food. Mikhail gently crouched, wrapped his own thick cashmere scarf around the boy's neck, and asked if he was hurt.
Then Misha remembered why he had wandered off. He opened the damp paper bag he had guarded so carefully.
Inside sat a tiny, terrified gray kitten. Misha explained that he had followed it outside the mall after a woman with a bright red umbrella told him the animal was trapped near a dark service entrance. She had called him by his exact nickname and whispered a comforting phrase that only his deceased mother used to use.
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Mikhail’s face went utterly rigid when the boy repeated those words. His late wife, Irina, had always taught Misha to protect anything smaller than him. Someone had stolen that deeply private memory to lure an eight-year-old child out into a dangerous storm.
Worse still, traffic cameras later confirmed the woman with the red umbrella had watched calmly from a distance until Misha pushed open the diner door.
