When we pulled apart, I was smiling. Actually smiling—the kind of smile that came from somewhere deeper than my face, that reached all the way down into the broken parts of me and filled them with light.
"Daddy," I said quietly. Testing the word in my mouth, in the physical world, in the space between us.
His eyes went dark. His hands tightened on my face.
"Again."
"Daddy."
He kissed me until I couldn't remember any other words.
And somewhere in the middle of all of it—the kissing and the holding and the particular joy of finally belonging to someone who saw all of me and chose to stay—I realized that the fear was gone.
Not the violence. Not the danger. Not the war that was still coming, the threats that still existed, the complicated mess of a life I was walking into.
But the fear of being left.
The fear of being too much.
The fear of wanting something and having it taken away.
All of that had dissolved in the warmth of his hands, in the promise of his words, in the kiss that had felt like coming home.
I was his little bird.
Chapter 10
Maksim
Thesecureroomsmelledlike recycled air and bleach. My brothers waited for me to update them, patient but eager. Nikolai looked like he hadn't slept in days—because he hadn't. Katya was cutting her first tooth, and the six-month-old had decided that suffering should be a family affair.
Konstantin sat with his chair pushed back from the table, arms folded over his massive chest. The pose looked casual—was designed to look casual—but I'd grown up watching Kostya read people. Right now, he was reading me.
I ignored him. Set my files on the table. Became the Fox.
"Anton's people are still in the city. Six confirmed operatives, all former intelligence or Spetsnaz." I pulled up the surveillance images on the room's central display. "They've been rotating through three safe houses in Queens, never staying more than forty-eight hours in any location."
Nikolai studied the images with tired, sharp eyes. "Movement patterns?"
"Reconnaissance, mostly. They've been photographing our supply routes, cataloging the legitimate business fronts. Building a target list."
"So he's preparing for a long game," Konstantin said. His voice was a low rumble, the sound of thunder waiting to happen. "Not a quick strike."
"The Deshnev backing suggests resources for a prolonged campaign." I clicked to the next image—the shipping warehouse in Red Hook, the one I'd flagged as a potential staging area. "They're not desperate. They're patient."
We talked through the tactical implications for another twenty minutes. Security rotations. Communication protocols. The particular chess game of anticipating an enemy who was anticipating you. This was familiar ground—the kind of work I'd been doing for a decade. Clean. Logical. A world where patterns made sense and emotions stayed locked away.
By the time Nikolai shuffled the final papers into their folders, I could feel the other conversation waiting. The one I'd been avoiding since I walked into the room.
"There's something else."
Both brothers looked at me. Kostya's eyebrow rose—that particular expression he got when he suspected someone was about to confess something interesting.
"So." I kept my voice even. Professional. "The art authenticator I said was out of the picture."
Konstantin leaned back in his chair and fixed me with that knowing stare. The one that saw through every deflection, every carefully constructed lie. The one that saidI've known you your entire life, and you're not as mysterious as you think you are.
"She's staying with me," I continued. The words came easier than I expected. "She's helping us track Anton's money trail. The gallery network, the authentication pipeline—she can identify the inconsistencies no one else would see."
