“I can do anything,” he snaps. His control fractures for just a second. “You think I will sit in Moscow while my only daughter is across an ocean after being taken? After eighteen days of not knowing anything?”
Eighteen days. I picture him alone in his office at three in the morning. Phone in his hand. Waiting. This is all my fault. “I am safe,” I repeat.
“Until I see you, you are not safe.” There is more shouting in the background. “Podgotovte samolet. Nemedlenno.”Prepare the plane. Immediately.
My eyes sting, but I blink the tears away. I do not cry easily. He raised me not to. “Papa…”
“Who is this man,” he asks, his voice settling back into something precise and cold, “that you remain with him instead of coming home?”
I look at Roman again. “He found me,” I say. “He stood between me and men who would have dragged me back.” And even as I say it, I feel the split inside me. The daughter who never wanted to disappoint him. And the woman who made a choice anyway.
“Put him on the phone, Anastasiya.”
I don’t argue. I don’t hesitate. I hold the phone out to Roman. “My father,” I tell him.
Roman stands, takes the phone from my hand, and lifts it to his ear.
“Dobryy vecher,” he says.Good evening.
I freeze. He really does speak Russian.
On the other end, my father says something sharp and fast. I can’t make out the words from where I stand, but I know the tone.
Roman listens without interrupting. His face doesn’t shift. “Da,” he replies evenly. “Ona v bezopasnosti.”Yes. She is safe.
My pulse beats harder.
He shifts slightly, one hand resting on the table as he looks at me. “Ya ne derzhu ee,” he says. “Eto ee vybor.” I am not holding her. It is her choice.
My father speaks again. Longer this time.
Roman’s jaw tightens just slightly. “Volkov mertv,” he says. Volkov is dead.There is a pause. “Ne ya.”Not me.“Prezident kluba Iron Reapers.”The President of the Iron Reapers club.Silence stretches between them. “Eto bylo reshenie kluba,” Roman adds calmly.It was the club’s decision.
Whatever my father says next must be sharp, because Roman’s gaze hardens slightly. “Bol’she on ee ne kosnetsya.”He will not touch her again.There’s another long pause. Roman’s voice lowers, steady and deliberate. “Esli vy priedete kak otets, vam budet otkryta dver.” If you come as her father, the door will be open.A breath. “Esli net… vy vstretite soprotivlenie.”If not, you will meet resistance.
My breath stalls as I look up at the man who has been my anchor since he stormed in. Oh dear God. You do not tell a man like him that if he does not come as a father, he will meet resistance. My stomach drops hard, like I’ve missed a step in the dark. For one wild second I imagine my father’s face on the other end of the line. The stillness. The way his eyes go flat before something terrible happens. He will kill him for this.
Roman does not fill it. He does not soften what he said. He stands there with the phone at his ear, one hand braced against the table, posture relaxed but unyielding. Across an ocean, my father says something low. Roman listens. Doesn’t flinch or apologize.
The quiet stretches longer than it should. Long enough for my pulse to pound in my throat. Long enough for me to imagine planes being fueled and men being armed.
Then Roman answers, calm as before. “Ya ponimayu.”I understand.He lowers the phone and holds it out to me. Our fingers brush as I take it back, my pulse anything but steady.
I lift it to my ear. “Papa?”
His breathing is controlled again. “I am coming,” he says before the line goes dead. I put the phone down and look up at him. “They’re coming,” I say.
“I assumed.”
I look at him. At the bruises on his knuckles. At the quiet control in his posture.
I yawn long and heavy. “I am tired,” I admit.
“You should go to sleep.”
“I don’t know if I can.”
“You can,” he says simply. He doesn’t try to convince me. Doesn’t offer comfort he hasn’t been invited to give.
