“Ugh, you’re sowholesome.” Nadya squeezes her hand and beams up at her. It’s almost enough to miss how, when shemoves, her face crumples in pain. “Tea’s good. If I can have some cake, too. Yulia has me doped up on the good stuff.”
Janella squeezes back before she’s on her feet, making a beeline for the kitchen. I don’t know if we have cake, but I wouldn’t put it past her to bake one if we don’t. I watch her slip an arm around Yulia’s and pull her along, murmuring, “Coffee for you?”
Trifon sidles up beside me, and we watch our girls fuss over our baby sister. “Miron and Leo are already sweeping all her usual spots,” he debriefs gruffly. “Val’s calling in favors with his contacts on the street, trying to figure out what the fuck happened. They weren’t aiming fire at any of the other racers.”
I force my voice low. “Retaliation?”
“Could be the Genovese still pissed about the warehouse.” His fingers pinch the bridge of his nose. “I knew we wouldn’t always be able to keep the girls out of the crosshairs. But, fuck, I thought we’d have more time.”
“What can I do?”
“Just keep Nadya safe, for now.” He glances over his shoulder at where Yulia and Janella are tucked around Nadya, adjusting her pillows and feeding her cake. She’d been the same way with Leonid. His smile is grim. “And be careful. If they’re targeting family…”
Fear slicks my veins with frost.
I can read between the lines of what Trifon is saying. If they know about the youngest Yuri, she’s as fair game as Yulia and Gela have been in the past.
Viktor Zakharov’s face—and the way he’d looked at Janella tonight, like a coiled snake about to spring—haunts me.
“I know.”
***
Yulia really did give Nadya the good stuff. By the time she and Trifon have left for the family estate, Nadya’s already conked out in bed. Janella insists on staying with her through the night, no matter how much I try to tell her she doesn’t have to.
“She’s my family, too,” is all she says before she shuts the door in my face.
As if that is the beginning and end of things.
Historically, it has been for me. I’m used to it. My family is my world.
I just never thought about, let alone planned for, a partner who’d feel this way about them too.
Now that I have it, how the fuck am I meant to live without it?
Janella makes it impossible to find out.
Dawn breaks after a sleepless night, and morning bleeds into a hazy afternoon. That’s all the time it takes my sister to catch a second wind, if the way her voice carries down the hallway is anything to go by.
“I’mtellingyou,” Nadya insists.
“Quit moving so much,” Janella chides.
The two of them are sprawled out on the couch, with some ridiculous reality TV show playing on the screen. The woman won’t ditch the café to stay in bed with me, but she’s happy to do it to lounge with my baby sister. Air thins in my lungs over it.
“I’mfine.” Nadya waves her off. She catches sight of me in the corner and points. “You! Tell her I’m fine. She’s fussing.”
“Fussing is her thing.” I grin, too amused to rescue her. “Besides, you got shot at. Twice. I’d say that qualifies as anything but fine.”
Nadya cheerfully flips me off. “One of those was just a graze. You’re all being dramatic.”
“Would you say that if I’d been the one to get shot at?”
Nadya’s eyes narrow to slits, unamused. “Cheap shot, bro.”
Still, she subsides and picks up the cup of tea Janella holds out to her. The exchange looks familiar. It takes me about three seconds to understand why. This is how Janella is—she anticipates a need and fulfills it before the other person ever has to ask. She’d done the same with Leonid when his ankle got fucked. She does it with me after a rough night.
You’re staring,I realize when Janella squirms, eyes meeting mine filled with questions.
