She blinks, stunned. Then, something unexpected happens.
She laughs.
It rolls through the room, softening everything it touches, especially me. She covers her mouth quickly, as if she didn’t mean to let it slip.
I step closer before I’ve consciously decided to. “You think I’m joking?”
“Mak…” She shakes her head, still smiling faintly. “Threatening people isn’t always the answer.”
“Says the woman who calls my workplace a war zone.”
“That’s because it is one.”
I almost smile. Almost.
Her expression shifts then—less amused, more guarded. “We should go. I’m showing Andi the house. It wasn’t supposed to take this long, and my agent is waiting.”
The words sit strangely in the air. All of a sudden, my chest aches with something—some kind ofwant.To have her closer.
“Lauren approved a few days, half-days,” she says. “Our things are getting shipped up from Cambridge, and I need to do the paperwork tomorrow morning…”
She looks toward the hallway, where her daughter disappeared moments ago. Something softens in her eyes, something protective and fierce that hits me low in the chest.
“I didn’t plan to bring her here,” she says quietly. “I didn’t plan any of this.”
I watch her, the mother and the woman blurring into one image that feels disturbingly right, like a puzzle piece sliding into place where I didn’t know a space existed.
The silence stretches. I feel it settle deep inside me—the new emptiness forming there, subtle, but unmistakable.
“I see,” I say, though I don’t.
She lifts her chin, sensing the shift. “We should go find her before she eats that slice without giving it to Dima.”
I nod.
She steps toward the door. Just before she turns away, she hesitates. “Thank you,” she says softly. “For… not being scary.”
The words hit harder than she intends.
She disappears into the hallway, her footsteps light and fast.
And I’m left standing alone, coffee cooling in my hand, listening to the distant sound of a child’s laughter echoing down the corridor.
I’ve been feared, obeyed, respected, and followed all my life.
But this empty ache settling beneath my ribs?
This is new.
I don’t know what to do with it.
Chapter 13
Roxy
The morning air in Bar Harbor is warm enough that I can tell I’ll be sweating soon. I pull my coat off as I step out of the Ursa Arcane SUV and toss it inside. The door shuts with a heavy thud behind me. It feels too loud on this quiet stretch of Main Street.
I should feel nothing but excitement. I’m minutes away from signing the closing papers on the first real home I’ve ever owned. A place for me and Andi. A place where I can tuck her into bed at night instead of dropping her off with my mother and pretending it doesn’t break something inside me.
