Dmitri Volkov had known his brother for thirty years and he had never, in all that time, seen Aleksei watch a door.
He did now. She'd left six minutes ago. Aleksei had asked to be updated on her security detail, reviewed the building's perimeter cameras, and then — this was the part Dmitri was choosing to save for later, for a very long time, like a very fine wine — gone to stand at the window that faced the street.
Dmitri said nothing.
He had learned early that Aleksei communicated most when he said least, and that silence, in his brother's case, was frequently a confession.
He turned the coin over his knuckles. Waited.
"She made Petrov take a coffee break," Aleksei said to the window.
"I heard." Dmitri paused. "She's funny."
Silence.
"She's not afraid of you," Dmitri said.
"She's afraid," Aleksei said. "She hides it."
"Most people can't hide it from you." He let that land, then: "What are you doing, Aleksei?"
Another long silence. Outside, the city moved. A million people going about their ordinary evenings, none of them knowing that up here, the man who held their city's shadows in his hands was watching a girl walk away and making absolutely no move to look elsewhere.
"Making sure a variable doesn't become a liability," Aleksei said.
Dmitri smiled at the back of his brother's head. "Right," he said. "That."
He pocketed the coin.
This, he thought, is going to be extraordinary.
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What Dmitri Thinks — Chapter 6 of Unravel Me Pakhan | Novelosity
