“That’s a very optimistic plan.”
“I’m an optimistic person.”
She laughs, a short, surprised sound. “No, you’re not.”
“No,” I agree. “I’m not. But I’m stubborn, and I’m good at my job, and I’m not going to let Bogdan win.”
She eyes my face for a long moment. Then, she rises on her toes and kisses my cheek. It’s brief and soft and over before I can react, but it steals my breath just the same.
“Thank you,” she whispers. “For not giving up on me.”
“Haven’t given up on anything in my life. Not about to start now.”
She slips back out of the bathroom, leaving me alone with my reflection.
I hold onto the edge of the sink and stare at the man in the mirror again. He looks like someone who’s about to do something stupid. Someone who’s let a woman and her daughter crawl under his skin and take up residence in places he thought he’d sealed off years ago.
Uncle Vasily would have told me I was compromised. That emotions make you sloppy. That the mission always comes first.
But Uncle Vasily never met Daria Kozlov.
I head back to the kitchen. Daria mentioned something about making pelmeni for dinner, and I told her I’d help fold them. It’s the kind of domestic nonsense I never imagined myself doing, standing in a cramped kitchen with flour on my hands while a five-year-old critiques my dumpling technique.
Strange, how quickly it has become the thing I look forward to most.
I pull ingredients from the refrigerator and lay them on the counter. Somewhere across the city, Bogdan Lebedev is plotting his next move. Somewhere in Moscow, Alexei Kozlov is pushing to come here to pass judgment on his cousin just because he’s antsy.
Let them scheme. Let them push.
I’ve got dumplings to make and a family to protect.
Everything else can wait until after dinner.
20
Daria
The pelmeni turned out better than I expected.
Kira declared them “almost as good as Babushka’s,” which is the highest compliment she knows how to give.
She ate seven, showed Pyotr how to dip them in sour cream “the right way,” and then passed out on the couch before we could get her into pajamas.
Pyotr carried her to bed while I started the dishes. Now, I’m elbow-deep in soapy water, scrubbing flour paste off the counter, and he’s drying the plates. We move around each other in the small kitchen like we’ve been doing this for years instead of weeks.
It should feel strange. It doesn’t.
“She’s out cold,” he reports as he sets a plate in the cabinet. “Didn’t even stir when I pulled up the covers.”
“Dumpling-making is exhausting work. She takes quality control very seriously.”
“I noticed. She rejected three of mine for being ‘too lumpy.’”
“She rejected four of mine. You got off easy.”
He lets out a low, rumbling laugh that I feel in my chest. It’s becoming my favorite sound. This man who kills people for a living is laughing in my kitchen over dumplings.
I reach up to put a serving bowl on the top shelf, and my shirt rides up. The cool air hits the small of my back, and I don’t think anything of it until I hear Pyotr suck in a breath behind me.
