Mila.
I'm moving before conscious thought, sliding the Glock pieces into the cleaning kit, out of sight. Izzy doesn't need the prompt—she's already closing the laptop, stacking the financial records, creating a barrier between evidence of murder and my eight-year-old daughter.
We work in sync. Unspoken. Like we've done this a hundred times.
Mila appears in the doorway, clutching her stuffed wolf, hair sticking up on one side. "Papa?"
"Hey,ptichka. Bad dream?"
She nods, padding over. Her eyes land on Izzy, widen slightly. "Izzy's still up?"
"Couldn't sleep either," Izzy says, voice softening in that way it does around Mila. "Want some warm milk? Your papa makes it better than anyone."
"With honey?"
"With honey."
Izzy stands, moving to the stove, and I watch my daughter follow her. Chattering about the dream—something about wolves and labyrinths, her subconscious processing the divorce in eight-year-old metaphor.
Izzy listens. Responds. Makes the milk exactly how Mila likes it.
And I sit at this table, gun cleaning kit hidden under financial records documenting conspiracy to murder, watching my fake wife mothering my daughter, like it's the most natural thing in the world.
This isn't fake anymore.
Hasn't been for a while.
I don't know when it shifted. When Izzy stopped being the Davenport heiress I married for mutual protection and started being the woman I can't imagine losing. Maybe when she stood in my kitchen meeting my daughter, bare-legged in my shirt, and didn't run.
Maybe the moment she said, "I do" in front of that bored judge and looked at me like she meant it.
Doesn't matter when.
Matters that it happened.
And tomorrow, when Matthew makes his move—because he will make a move, desperate men always do—I need to make sure both of them survive it.
Mila and Izzy.
My daughter and my?—
Wife. Not fake. Just... wife.
"Papa, Izzy says you're teaching her about guns," Mila says, climbing onto my lap with her milk. "Why?"
I glance at Izzy, who freezes mid-sip of her own tea. We didn't discuss what to tell Mila about the training. The weapons. The very real danger circling us.
But Izzy recovers fast. "Because your papa wants to make sure I can protect myself. And you, if I ever need to."
"From what?"
"From anything." I press a kiss to her hair, breathing in strawberry shampoo and innocence I'm trying desperately to preserve. "But that's my job. And Izzy's learning to be backup, just in case."
"Like a team."
"Exactly like a team."
Mila seems satisfied with this. Drinks her milk. Yawns. "Can I sleep with you tonight? The dream was really scary."
