This was friendship, I realized. This was real, built on mutual understanding of needs others would find strange. Sophie and I were the same kind of broken, and that made us perfect for each other.
"Thank you," I said when the laughter faded. "For this. For sharing your space. For understanding."
"Thank you for coming," she replied. "I've been so lonely with this part of myself. Nikolai is wonderful, but he's my Daddy, not my friend. I needed this. Someone who gets why I need to color inside the lines sometimes."
"Or outside them," I said, looking at her rainbow castle.
"Or outside them," she agreed. "But by choice, not by accident."
Choice. Everything came back to that. The choice to be vulnerable. The choice to be Little. The choice to trust men who did terrible things but loved us with surprising tenderness.
Atthree-thirtyexactly,theknock came—three measured raps that made my heart skip like a scratched record. I'd been watching the clock for the last fifteen minutes, purple crayon frozen in my hand, pretending to focus on my mandala while my body tracked each passing second.
"Come in," Sophie called, but I was already moving, already reaching for the door.
Kostya stood in the hallway looking like violence personified—black henley stretched across his chest, tactical pants, boots that had probably kicked in doors that morning. But his expression was soft. Careful. Like he was entering a church instead of a nursery.
He'd removed his shoulder holster. The gun was gone, but the shape of where it lived was still pressed into his shirt. His hands were empty, hanging loose at his sides, and I realized he was nervous. The Beast of Brighton Beach was nervous about entering a room full of stuffed animals.
"Hi, Daddy," I said, and watched his gray eyes go dark.
Not with lust—though that was always there, simmering under everything—but with something tender. Protective. The particular warmth that came when I used that title outside of sex, claiming him as mine in front of someone else.
"Hi, kitten," he replied, voice pitched low and gentle.
Sophie rose from the table, and there was something formal in the way she greeted him. Not unfriendly, but respectful of boundaries. "Kostya. Thank you for coming."
He nodded at her, then his attention returned to me. Always to me, like I was the sun and he was just a planet caught in orbit. "Show me what you've been doing."
I grabbed his hand—so much larger than mine, scarred from violence, capable of terrible things—and pulled him toward the table. He followed, careful of his size in the small space, ducking slightly under the string lights.
Without thinking, without asking, I crawled into his lap once he'd folded himself into one of the child-sized chairs that looked comically small under his bulk. His arm came around me automatically, steadying me, and I felt myself settling in a way I hadn't even with Sophie. She was my friend, my equal in this space. But Kostya was my anchor.
"Look," I said, showing him my mandala. Half-finished, all blues and greens in perfect gradients. "I stayed inside the lines."
His chin came to rest on my shoulder as he studied my work with the same intensity he'd use to plan an interrogation. "It's beautiful, kitten. Very precise. These color choices—" He traced a finger over the blue sections. "Like water. Calm."
"That's what I was thinking," I admitted, warm from his praise. "Like the ocean that morning at Brighton Beach."
Sophie watched us with a soft smile. "You two are disgusting," she said, but her tone was fond. "All that tenderness. It's like watching a wolf cuddle a bunny."
"I'm not a bunny," I protested.
"You're definitely a bunny," Kostya agreed, pressing a kiss to my temple. "My bunny."
"If she's a bunny, what am I?" Sophie asked, returning to her own coloring.
"Trouble," Kostya said immediately. "Just like Nikolai."
Sophie laughed, bright and delighted. "He says the same about you."
They had an easy familiarity I hadn't expected. Not quite family—that would take time—but the comfortable awareness of people who understood each other's roles. Sophie knew what Kostya did for the Besharovs. Kostya knew what Sophie meant to Nikolai. They existed in each other's orbits without friction, bound by their love for the Besharov brothers.
"We should play something," Sophie announced suddenly. She moved to the pile of stuffed animals, considering options. "Maya, you haven't met everyone yet."
"Everyone?" I looked at the collection—bears, dragons, elephants, things I couldn't identify.
"Every stuffie has a name and personality," Sophie explained seriously. "It's very important. This is Mr. Buttons—he's a bear who likes tea. And this is Princess Scales—she's Zmeya's cousin, obviously."
