"I need to think about what happens next," I say, when my plate is empty. "I can't stay here indefinitely."
"Why not?"
I look at him. "Because I showed up at your club covered in blood, and you've been incredibly generous. And I've already taken up more of your time and resources than any reasonable person would—"
"Mia." He says my name the way he says everything. With weight. "I didn't ask why you think you should leave. I asked why you can't stay."
I open my mouth. Close it.
He waits.
"Because," I say, and the honesty of it surprises even me, "if I stay too long, I'll start to feel more than just safe. And then leaving will be harder."
Something moves behind his eyes. Fast and deep, like a current beneath still water. He sets his phone down on the counter.
“Your family is—" He pauses. "You haven't mentioned any family."
"There isn't any. Not close. My mom's in Florida. We talk at Christmas. My dad left before I was born. No siblings. At least none I know about." I shrug to punctuate how little I care about being alone, and hope he believes it.
"Your bank accounts are in your name. Your phone is traceable. Your job…what do you do?"
"I'm a receptionist. At a physiotherapy clinic in the city." It sounds so ordinary coming out of my mouth. So small against the scale of what's happened. "They'll notice if I don't show up on Monday."
"Monday is two days away," he says. "We have time."
We.
I notice the pronoun. I notice it the way I noticed his hand over mine and the coat over my lap and the way he said I won't do it to a room full of men who wanted him to do it, and I think: this man keeps including me in his plural without being asked to.
"You don't have to do this," I say. "Any of this. I heard what you said to them. I might not be a solution to your mandate, but I don’t want to be a problem for you, either."
"You're not." He looks at me. Steady and dark and absolutely certain.
"But you're in my house," he says. "And in my house, you're under my protection. That's not negotiable and it's not contingent on you being a solution to anything. It's a fact. The same way the security system is a fact and the locks on the doors are a fact." He picks up his coffee. "Do you understand?"
I do understand. That's the problem. I understand it in a way that makes something behind my ribs ache with a feeling I‘ve never experienced before. It feels dangerously like the first time someone has drawn a line around me and said, inside this line, nothing touches you, and meant it.
"Yes," I say.
"Good." He stands. "I need to make some calls. Pavlina will show you the rest of the house. There are books in the library if you want to read, and the garden is enclosed, so you can go outside without being seen from the rest of the estate." He pauses in the doorway and turns back. "If you need anything, ask Pavlina or ask me. Don't default to managing on your own because you think you'll be a burden. You aren’t."
Then he leaves.
I sit in the quiet kitchen with my empty plate and my cooling coffee and press my palms flat on the counter and take a slow, deep breath.
The thing about Iosif Dubovich, the thing I'm only beginning to understand, is that he doesn't make promises. He makes statements. He doesn't say I'll try to keep you safe. He says you're under my protection and that's not negotiable and thewords feel like walls. Like foundations. Like the kind of thing you could put the entire weight of yourself against and it wouldn't shift.
I have never in my life had someone talk to me like that.
I have had men who said I'll take care of you while meaning I'll take care of the version of you that's convenient for me. I have had men who said you can count on me while already halfway out the door. I have had sweetness that curdled and promises that turned out to be provisional, contingent on me staying small enough, grateful enough, easy enough.
This isn't that.
I don't know what this is. But it isn't that.
Pavlina clears my plate and gives me a look that is warm and appraising at the same time, the look of a woman who has watched this household for a long time and is forming opinions she will probably keep to herself.
"Come," she says. "I'll show you where things are."
