I can't help smiling. "The food is excellent. But there are only so many variations of grain bowls a person can handle before they start dreaming of actual protein."
"Of course,mi niña. I'll prepare everything. You can pick it up the day after tomorrow." A pause. "I know for a fact that your father won't be home."
Another pause. Amelia knows the landscape of my relationship with Arthur Ainsley. Knows the silence and the distance and the way love curdled into resentment years ago.
"We'll have time alone," she says gently. "I want to hear everything. How marriage is treating you. How you're settling in with your new family."
We say our goodbyes, and I hang up feeling lighter than I have in days.
Then reality settles back in.
I sit in the quiet office, surrounded by the machinery of my secret life, and ask myself the question I've been avoiding.
Why am I doing this?
Alexei hasn't asked for help. Hasn't indicated he needs or wants support. For all I know, he's been managing his condition for decades and has systems in place that work perfectly well without my interference.
But I remember the look in his eyes when I walked into the gym. That flash of apprehension when he realized I might have seen his pump. The way Zakhar moved to shield him, instinctive and protective.
Fear.
I know what fear looks like when you're trying to hide vulnerability. Know what it feels like to be alone with something that makes you different, that marks you as weak in a world that devours weakness.
No one was there for me when I needed protection.
But I can be there for Alexei.
Even if he never knows.
It's ridiculous to care this much. Ridiculous to invest this kind of energy into someone who's bound to me only by a contract that expires in less than a year, someone I'm supposed to be manipulating into wanting me gone.
But here I am anyway.
I gather my things and head upstairs. The restaurant is in full lunch service, the din of conversation and clinking silverware washing over me as I emerge into the main dining room. The scent of fresh bread and herbs, espresso and citrus, the particular smell of Maison Lyra that's become synonymous with my double life.
Outside, Chicago spreads bright and indifferent. Traffic hums. People move with purpose along sidewalks, oblivious to the operations being planned beneath their expensive shoes.
And there, parked at the curb, is the black SUV with Vitor leaning against it.
My new driver. My new shadow. My new reminder that I'm no longer free to move through the city anonymously.
Vitor must be pushing fifty, but he's formidably built. Broad shoulders, thick neck, the particular stillness of someone who's seen combat and learned patience the hard way. When I tried to tease him this morning, he remained silent. Unflappable. Professional to the point of being a wall.
I suspect Zakhar chose him specifically for those qualities.
He sees me exit and immediately opens the rear door, his expression neutral.
"Home?" he asks.
The word stops me mid-step.
Home.
A word I'm starting to associate with exposed steel beams and concrete floors. With three men who make me feel things I have no business feeling. With a place I never intended to belong but somehow fits better than the mansion I grew up in ever did.
"Yes," I hear myself say. "Home."
I slide into the SUV, and Vitor closes the door with a soft click that sounds like finality.
