Georgiy leads me out of Anthony’s office and toward the kitchen, where I can smell food cooking.
“You need to eat.”
“Are you going to micromanage me now?” I ask, but he says nothing, just continues leading me forward. “You can micromanage my dick too.”
“I will.”
That makes me giggle, and when we arrive in the kitchen, Agatha stops what she’s doing and eyes us.
“Seems he’s made you happy now, bug?” she asks, and I nod.
“He’s mine now.”
“Fine,” she huffs. “You can live, Mr. Sokolov. And also, have some of my banana bread.”
“I don’t like bananas or bread.”
“Then maybe youshoulddie,” she spits.
I bound over to her and squeeze her, leaving Georgiy to inspect the plate of food that Teddy set before him.
“How do I know this isn’t poisoned?”
“Because Bane’s happy with you,” Agatha replies curtly. “Hurt him again and you won’t know what hit you. I have herbs in my garden that are illegal.”
He picks up his fork and opens his mouth to say something, but then looks at me, and his lips snap shut.
“I won’t hurt him.”
“You better not. Now eat your eggs and behave. I won’t have anyone disrespecting me by not eating what I’ve prepared.”
Georgiy holds his fork like he’s planning to stab someone with it. But he won’t. He knows how much everyone here means to me.
I chat happily with Agatha and Teddy, telling them about what I’ve discovered about myself. The more I talk about it, the less it hurts.
Agatha bursts into tears when I tell her my name and pulls me into a rough hug.
“Oh, sweet boy,” she coos. “Of course you have a name.”
That makes me tear up, the thought of having a past, of having some kind of connection to someone or something. Not that I know who or what, but still, I mattered enough to have one.
And this is verified when Anthony storms into the kitchen a while later.
“Diablo found something.”
“What?” I ask, sitting up in my chair, my stomach roiling slightly from nerves.
“You were right. You are connected. Somehow.”
I swallow the scone in my mouth, and it sticks to the inside of my throat. Fuck. I knew it. Does that mean they won’t want me anymore because of my ties to someone bad? Because maybe we’re related.
“What did you find?” Georgiy asks, reading my mind. He must sense the nerves rolling off me at the moment.
“As we know, Henry was an alias. But it was a good one. It lined up very well with Samvel and who he appears to be. It’s why we didn’t realize at the time that it was fake. Whoever is behind these aliases is doing a damn good job.” Anthony rubs a hand down his face. “And we weren’t able to find much on a Samvel, Emma, or Ara in any legal adoption databases here in the U.S., but when Diablo went into an Armenian adoption site, he was able to get a hit on the names Samvel and Emma, as siblings adopted out at the same time.”
I sit up in my chair.
“Wait, what about me? Was I adopted, too?”
