I glance at Christian, who’s still staring at the space Kai just left, his gaze wary.
Elliot clears his throat into the silence, and it’s too loud, too forced. “I should… probably go too.” His shoulders are stiff, his smile quick, brittle. He pushes back his chair and disappears down the hall.
Now it’s just me and Christian.
“Is he okay?” I ask quietly.
Christian sighs. “Honestly? I never know.”
I nod at that. It’s something I can understand all too well.
His eyes slide back to me. “Are you?” he asks. “Okay, that is?”
A smile pulls at my mouth, thin and tired. “I never know.”
He studies me for a long moment, his eyes hiding behind his glasses just enough that I can’t read him.
“You know what he meant, don’t you?” I ask suddenly.
Christian doesn’t move. Doesn’t answer.
“He didn’t like my father. Why?”
His chair scrapes as he stands abruptly, and I jolt, blinking up at him.
He doesn’t answer. Just says, briskly, “Put on a coat. We’re going for a walk.”
***
The cold hits me the moment we step outside.
I wrap my arms around myself as Christian and I walk in silence down the gravel path, our footsteps crunching in sync.
I don’t ask where we’re going. I’m not sure it matters.
Christian shoves his hands deeper into his coat pockets. He’s quiet, thoughtful. Not unusual for him, but there’s something different about him at this very moment.
“Truthfully,” he says after a while, “I debated not telling you.”
I look up at him.
“I didn’t know if it was mine to tell,” he admits, eyes fixed on the horizon, where the trees line the edge of the estate like a dark wall. “Or if knowing would even help you at all. But then I saw you back there, sitting across from Gabriel, holding your ground, and I thought maybe you deserved to know.”
He finally meets my eyes.
“You look the same,” he says, but it’s almost like he’s speaking to someone else entirely. “But you couldn’t be any more different.”
I slow, brow furrowing. “What do you mean?”
Christian exhales, turning his gaze forward again. “Your father,” he says after a beat, “was more involved with the Steeles than you might think.”
My stomach knots, even before he continues. But I don’t say anything. I just listen.
“They were in love,” Christian says finally, and his voice shifts into something harder. Resigned. “Your father. Kai’s mother, Irina.”
I stop walking.
He turns with me, watching my face closely, but he doesn’t soften it. He doesn’t try to dress it up. “It started years ago. Hardly anyone knows.”
