She smiles, and for a moment she looks so much like Misha that it takes my breath away. The same bone structure, the same intensity in her eyes. But where Misha is all sharp edges and controlled violence, Anna is warmth and light.
"I thought Misha would have sent you away by now," I say. "Somewhere safer."
Anna's smile turns wry. "Oh, he tried. Gave me a whole speech about how I needed to leave before nightfall, how the estate was going to become a war zone, how he couldn't protect me and fight at the same time." She waves a hand dismissively. "I told him to go to hell."
"You what?"
"I'm a Kashkin." She says it simply, like it explains everything. "This is my family's home. My brother is about to fight for his life—and yours. You think I'm going to run away and wait by the phone to find out if everyone I love is dead?"
I stare at her, caught between admiration and alarm. "But if something happens—"
"Then I'll be here to face it with the rest of you." Her jaw sets in a stubborn line I recognize from Misha. "I'm not a soldier, Bianca. I can't fight the way they do. But I can be here. I can help with the wounded, keep people calm, do whatever needs doing. That's worth something."
"Misha must be furious."
"Absolutely livid." She grins, unrepentant. "He threatened to have me physically removed. I reminded him that our mother would haunt him from the grave if he manhandled his own sister. He backed down." The grin fades into something more serious. "He's scared too, you know. He doesn't show it—God forbid Misha Kashkin show an emotion—but I can tell. He's scared of losing you."
The words land somewhere deep in my chest. "He said that?"
"He didn't have to. I've known him my whole life. I've seen him lose people before—our parents, friends, allies. But I've never seen him look the way he looks when he talks about you." She reaches out and takes my hand. "You matter to him, Bianca. More than I think he knows how to say."
I don't know how to respond. The emotions are too tangled—fear and hope and grief and love, all twisted together into something I can't name.
"Tell me about him," I say instead. "About what he was like before."
"Before our parents died, you mean?"
I nod.
Anna is quiet for a moment, her gaze distant. "He was... softer. Not soft—never that. Even as a kid, he was intense, focused, the kind of person who noticed everything. But he laughed more. Smiled more. He used to bring flowers to our mother from the garden, these ridiculous bouquets of weeds and wildflowers that he thought were beautiful."
The image is so at odds with the man I know that I can barely reconcile them. Misha, bringing flowers. Misha, laughing.
"What happened to him? After?"
"He became what he needed to become." Anna's voice is matter-of-fact, but there's an old sadness beneath it. "Someone had to protect what was left of our family. Someone had to be hard enough to survive in this world. Dmitri was already involved in the business, but Misha—" She shakes her head."Misha threw himself into it like he was trying to drown. He built walls so high that nobody could reach him anymore. Not even me."
"But you kept trying."
"Of course I did. He's my brother. You don't give up on family just because they make it difficult." She looks at me, her expression softening. "And now there's you. The first person who's managed to get through those walls in seventeen years."
I don't know what to say to that. The weight of it—the responsibility—settles on my shoulders alongside everything else.
"I don't know if I've gotten through anything," I say honestly. "Most of the time I still feel like I'm just... surviving. Day to day. Moment to moment."
"That's all any of us are doing, darling. The trick is finding someone worth surviving for." Anna squeezes my hand, then releases it and stands, stretching her back. "I should let you rest. But I'm not going anywhere—I'll be around if you need me. Probably driving Mrs. Novak crazy in the kitchen."
"Anna." I catch her arm before she can leave. "Thank you. For staying. For... all of this."
She smiles, and it's the warmest thing I've seen in days. "That's what family does. And like it or not, you're family now." She winks. "Misha just hasn't made it official yet."
She slips out before I can respond, leaving a faint trace of expensive perfume and the echo of that word.
Family.
I press my hand to my stomach, to the secret I'm carrying, and wonder what it would be like to actually have one.
***
