"It's more than that," I say.
Anna is quiet for a moment. When she speaks again, her voice has changed—less sharp, more careful.
"Then let me meet her."
"What?"
"I want to come up. Meet this woman who's got my brother acting like a human being for the first time in seventeen years."
"Absolutely not. Sergei is—"
"Sergei is in Seattle, according to Dmitri's last update. He's nowhere near San Francisco, and your estate is a fortress. I'd be perfectly safe."
"The answer is no."
"Misha." Her tone sharpens again. "You can't keep her locked in that mausoleum with no one but Mrs. Novak and yourbrooding silence for company. She needs someone who isn't terrifying."
"I'm not terrifying."
A pause. "You're terrifying, brother. It's one of your best qualities. But it's not exactly conducive to making a traumatized woman feel at ease."
I want to argue. Want to tell her she's wrong, that Bianca is adapting, that she doesn't need anyone but—
But what? Me? The man who bought her, who lied to her, who spent two years watching her from the shadows?
Anna isn't wrong. Bianca is alone here, surrounded by guards and ghosts. Mrs. Novak is kind, but she's staff—there are limits to the connection she can offer. And I...
I don't know what I am to Bianca. Enemy, protector, captor. Something in between. Something that doesn't have a name.
"Not yet," I say finally. "The situation is too unstable. But when things calm down—"
"When things calm down," Anna repeats, skeptical. "In our family, things never calm down. You know that as well as I do."
"Then I'll make an exception."
She sighs, a long exhale that carries years of frustration. "Fine. But I'm holding you to that. The moment Sergei is dealt with, I'm coming up there. No arguments."
"No arguments," I agree, though we both know I'll find new ones when the time comes.
"Good." A pause. "Are you okay, Misha? Really?"
The journal is still in my lap. My mother's words, my mother's hopes, my mother's fears. Seventeen years of grief pressing down on my chest like a stone.
"I'm fine," I say.
"Liar," she says again, but gently this time. "Call me if you need anything. And... be careful with her. Bianca. If she matters to you—really matters—don't do what you always do."
"What do I always do?"
"Push people away before they can get too close. Convince yourself that distance is the same as protection." Her voice is soft, the teasing edge gone entirely. "It isn't, Misha. Take it from someone who's watched you do it for seventeen years."
She hangs up before I can respond.
I sit in the darkness, the phone in one hand, the journal in the other, my sister's words echoing in my mind.
Distance isn't protection.
Everyone keeps telling me that. Dmitri. Anna. Even Bianca, in her own way, when she demanded to be included instead of shielded.
