The call ends. Silence settles. Dima is still staring, his face deadpan. When he speaks, his tone is murderously amused. “So,” he says. “Do I get flowers too? Equal treatment. I am offended you skipped me.”
“Shut up,” I mutter.
“I could use some wine. Maybe a rug. Something ‘luxurious,’ no?”
“Dima.”
“It’s cute,” he says, unbothered. “You panicking.” The word ‘cute’ sounds almost hilariously rough and twisted coming from him.
“I am not panicking.”
“Mm.” He pockets his phone. “Then why are your ears red?”
I want to strangle him. Instead, I sink into my chair, elbows on my knees, head in my hands. The wood creaks under my weight. The office feels too small. My body feels too tight. My thoughts feel too loud.
“Boss,” Dima says after a moment, quieter. “You okay?”
No. Yes.
I don’t know.
“I have a daughter,” I say quietly.
He doesn’t blink. “Yeah. Saw that coming.”
My eyes lift. “You knew?”
“You and themalen’kiyglare the same. I thought, huh, maybe he spawned.”
I stare at him, and he grins. But it fades quickly, replaced by a furrowed brow. When Paul first hired Dima as his replacement, I wasn’t sure—there was a seed of doubt there. Dima was so young, too sarcastic and chiming in when it wasn’t his place. But there’s an intimacy knowing that either of us could die in the shadow of the pine trees or on the floor of a hidden cabin. That we rely on one another to survive.
“You don’t know what to do with this,” he says simply.
“I know exactly what to do.”
He lifts a brow. “Do you?”
I look away. Out the window. Toward the tree line that borders Ursa Arcane’s land. Wind moves through the branches like the place itself is breathing. Dima’s question makes me wonder abouthisbackground, one I know little about. I only know what was in the file that Lauren provided.
Russia until he was fourteen. Orphaned, with two younger brothers and an older sister who raised all three. She died of cancer a few years ago. He hadn’t seen her since he left twelve years ago.
“I want to protect them,” I say. The words feel scraped out of my chest. Raw. “Both of them. And I don’t think she believes I can.”
Dima nods once, slowly. “Then show her.”
His simplicity is infuriating. But also…right.Could it be that easy?
I lean back in my chair and let my eyes close for a moment. The image that rises behind my eyelids is involuntary and visceral: A small girl with a fierce gaze and too much curiosity.
My daughter.
Roxanne’s soft smile as she talked about her. The way I’ve seen Andrea run to her open arms. The way I wished, ached, to be on the receiving end of that excitement, that love.
She doesn’t trust me yet. Maybe she shouldn’t.
But she will.
I will make sure of it.
