Chapter 25 · The House

"Don't." Levi's hand closed over my wrist before I even touched the drawer.

"You said the maps were in here."

"I said they might be. Touch it wrong and the whole cabinet drops through the floor. My father built this place to eat thieves."

I looked at his hand on my wrist. He didn't move it. Neither did I.

"Your father built a house that eats people," I said. "Sounds about right for this family."

"Careful." His voice went flat, the boardroom voice, the one he used on men twice his size right before he took their company apart. "You work for me now, Volkov. Not the other way."

"I signed a contract. I didn't sign up to get my hand chewed off by furniture."

That got him. One corner of his mouth twitched, gone fast, like he'd caught himself feeling something and stomped it flat. He let go of my wrist and stepped back, and the space between us went cold where his hand had been.

The house smelled like dust and old paper, twenty years of nobody living in it. Sheets over the furniture. A grandfather clock stopped at some hour that didn't matter anymore.