I wanted to tell her that wasn't what I'd meant, that there was a difference between controlling emotions during crisis and shutting down entirely. But she was already withdrawing her hand, standing to clear dishes she'd barely touched.
"Leave them," I said. "Someone will get them in the morning."
"I need to do something," she said, but set the plates down anyway. Stood there looking lost, like she'd forgotten what came next in the routine of normal evening.
"Come here." I pulled her onto my lap, and she came willingly but stiffly, like a doll being positioned. "You're safe. Frank will be okay. We're going to handle this."
"I know," she said against my chest, but there was no conviction in it. Just agreement for the sake of ending the conversation.
I held her tighter, trying to infuse comfort through touch since words weren't reaching her. She let me, passive in my arms, and that passivity scared me more than fighting would have. Maya was never passive. She was either soft and yielding by choice or sharp and fighting by nature. This blank compliance was neither.
"Do you want to color?" I asked, desperate to reach her. "Or read? We could go back to the nursery—"
"I want to sleep." The words came out flat, final. "Is that okay?"
It was barely past nine, too early for either of us usually. But trauma was exhausting, and she'd been running on adrenaline for days. Maybe sleep would help. Maybe in the morning, with Maks's intel and clearer heads, we could process this better.
"Of course," I said, helping her stand. "Whatever you need."
She moved through the bedtime routine like a ghost. Bathroom, teeth, face washed. Changed into one of my t-shirts without the usual playful theft, just mechanical undressing andredressing. The kittens tried to engage her, Zmeya batting at her ankles, but she barely noticed.
When she finally crawled into bed, she curled against me immediately, her back to my chest, my arm around her waist. Standard sleeping position, everything normal except for the tension in her body, the careful way she held herself even while pretending to relax.
"I love you," she said into the darkness, and something about the way she said it made my chest tight.
"I love you too, kitten. Everything's going to be okay."
She made a sound that might have been agreement or might have been nothing. Her breathing gradually slowed, deepened, the tension finally leaving her body as sleep took over. I held her carefully, afraid to move and wake her, afraid to let go even for a second.
I stayed awake for a long time after, mind running through scenarios and solutions. Tomorrow I'd tell her everything. The real reason Brand wanted her, the true danger she was in. It would terrify her, but she deserved the truth. Deserved to know why I was so certain about the trap, why Frank was almost certainly already gone.
Tomorrow we'd make a real plan. Not just reactive defense but proactive offense. Take the fight to Brand before he could escalate further. Maya would hate being sidelined, but she'd understand once she knew the full scope.
Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow. Always assuming we had more time.
I pressed my lips to her hair, breathed in vanilla and that specific Maya-scent that had become my whole world in just days. She murmured something in her sleep, pressed back against me, and I let myself believe this moment would last.
Let myself fall asleep holding her, not knowing I was already holding a ghost, that she'd made her decision the moment I'drefused to act, that every second of this evening had been her saying goodbye in ways I was too blind to see.
The last thing I remember was the sound of her breathing, steady and sure, and the weight of her in my arms—precious, protected, mine.
Chapter 17
Maya
Iwasusedtodealingwith blood on my hands.
It was part of the job. But normally the blood on my hands was there because I'd been trying to heal someone.
Now though, as I lay in bed in turmoil, I could feel blood on my hands again. Not because I was trying to heal someone, but because of inaction. Kostya shifted next to me.
Frank's text was burned into my brain.
Police came to the store, asked about you. Now there are men watching the bodega.
Of course it could be a trap.
Kostya had said it was textbook extraction protocol. Probability suggested he was right. But probability also said that sometimes the unlikely thing was the true thing. Sometimes a scared kid really did need help. Sometimes waiting for morning meant finding a body instead of saving a life.
