I arch a brow. “Did you promise them that, or did they ask?”
She grins, unrepentant. “They’re six. I’m not the monster who says no to extra whipped cream on reopening day.”
“They will never leave,” I laugh. “They’ll set up camp in that corner.”
Her eyes slide to the cluster of kids already spread around table four, coloring on Bean & Bloom activity sheets we printed last night. “Exactly,” she says. “We hook them young.”
Misha stands near the door with a cup of black coffee in his hand, his gaze sweeping the room. He has his usual restingglower in place, but every once in a while, it cracks. Like when Hope hands him a muffin with a little flag stuck in it that says Security in her messy handwriting. He stares at it for a full three seconds, then his mouth betrays him. The corner tips up.
“Very funny,” he mutters.
Hope just beams. “You’re keeping it. I made that by hand.”
“I can see that,” he says. He tucks the flag into his pocket, where it sticks out like a ridiculous badge.
Anya flits from table to table, checking on people, arranging flowers, straightening chairs that no one needs straightened. She stops at the small retail shelf near the door and rearranges bags of beans until the display is perfect, then steps back with a satisfied nod.
“You should have seen your face when we rolled in that new roaster,” she tells me, linking her arm through mine. “I thought you might cry.”
“I did,” I reply. “I just waited until you all went home.”
She squeezes my arm. Her eyes drift to Leo in my carrier. He’s awake now, eyes unfocused and blue, his mouth working around his pacifier. She brushes a gentle finger over his forehead.
“Hello, little lion,” she murmurs in Russian. “You picked a good kingdom to be born into.”
At the corner table, Isaak sits in his wheelchair with a cup in front of him. He watches everything with an intensity that has not dulled, not even in this setting. The lines around his eyes seem deeper, and his hair is more silver.
When I finally make my way over, my heart picks up the pace. Not with fear, exactly. With awareness.
“Do you need a refill?” I ask, nodding toward his cup.
He looks up at me. For a moment, something unreadable passes through his gaze. Then he glances down at the logo on the mug and runs a finger along the curve of the B.
“Your mother used to drink from this design,” he says. “You did not change it.”
“Some things didn’t need changing,” I answer.
He nods once. “The coffee is good.”
There is no higher praise from him. I know that now.
“Luka customized the blend,” I tell him. “He wanted something that felt like the old house blend but… stronger.”
That gets the slightest spark in his eyes. “Of course he did.”
Silence stretches for a second. Not the heavy kind that used to sit between us like a threat. A different kind. One that waits.
“I didn’t expect to be invited today,” he says finally. “I’m not blind to the history that lives between us.”
“Neither am I,” I reply.
His gaze settles on Leo. My son squirms a little, his small fist pressing against my chest. Isaak’s expression changes, minimal but unmistakable, easing and tightening in the very same moment.
“When I was a younger man,” he says, “I thought legacy only meant what you build. Power. Territory. Fear. I did notunderstand that it is also what you heal. What you choose to hand to the next generation and what you decide dies with you.”
He looks up, meeting my eyes. “You are giving my grandson a clean place to start. I do not deserve a seat at that table, but I am grateful for the view.”
There is a lump in my throat. I swallow around it.
