"I control myself fine."
"Then prove it." She turns back toward her perfect brownstone; her perfect life built on blood money and social climbing. "Stay away from trouble. Stay away from dangerous women. Or I'll make sure you lose her."
The threat hangs in the air like smoke from a gun barrel. Then she's gone, the door closing behind her with aristocratic finality.
I stand there for three breaths, forcing my pulse to steady. Forcing my hands to unclench. Elena knows exactly how to twist the knife, and the worst part is she's right. My past isn't dead. It's just waiting. Patient. Hungry.
I get in the car. Mila's buckled into the back seat, staring out the window. Too quiet. I meet her eyes in the rearview mirror.
"You okay,ptichka?"
She nods, but her fingers twist the strap of her backpack. "Mama was mad."
"Mama's always mad at me." I start the engine, pulling away from the brownstone and Elena's poison. "It's her natural state."
A small smile tugs at her mouth. "Like Grumpy Bear?"
"Exactly like Grumpy Bear." I glance back at her. "What do you want for breakfast?"
"Pancakes?"
"Pancakes it is."
The driveto my place takes twenty minutes. I live in a fortress disguised as a normal apartment because, even out of the game, I'm not stupid. Reinforced doors, panic rooms, security that would make paranoid billionaires jealous. The kind of normal I'm building for my daughter comes with steel bones.
We make pancakes together. Mila insists on adding chocolate chips, way too many, until the batter looks more like dessert than breakfast. She chatters about her friend Marina, about the escape room birthday party next week, about the mystery book she's reading, in which the detective is a girl with a magnifying glass.
I listen, flipping pancakes, and try not to think about Izzy.
Try not to remember the taste of her mouth. The way she gasped my name against the window thirty-eight stories above Manhattan. The desperation in her eyes when she asked me to make her forget.
One night. That's all it was.
But the memory of her curves pressed against me, of her nails digging into my shoulders, drawing blood as she came apart, isn’t going anywhere.
After breakfast, Mila spreads her puzzle across the living room floor. Five hundred pieces, all ocean and sky. She likes the challenge, the way chaos becomes order when you find the right fit.
Just like her father.
"Papa?"
"Yeah,ptichka?"
"Do you miss Mama?"
The question lands like a bullet. I set down the edge piece I was holding and look at her. She's not looking back, focused on sorting blues, but her shoulders are tense. Waiting.
"I miss who she used to be," I say carefully, because lying to Mila never works. "Before things got complicated."
"She's mean to you."
"Sometimes people hurt each other without meaning to."
"She means to." Mila's voice is flat, matter-of-fact. Eight years old and already reading subtext like a professional. "I can tell."
I move to sit beside her, helping to sort pieces. "Your mama loves you very much."
"I know." She finds two pieces that connect, pressing them together with satisfaction. "But she doesn't love you."
