“Uh, nothing,” I manage, my voice a pathetic squeak, my smile so fake it could star in a toothpaste ad. “Just… Alya’s song. It’scute.”
His eyes narrow just a fraction, and I know he doesn’t buy it.
“Cute,” he repeats, like it’s a foreign word he’s never had cause to say out loud. Then—without looking at me: “You’re fidgeting like someone with secrets.”
What?
Before I can process that, the SUV takes a smooth left turn—too smooth—and inertia shoves me right into his side. Shoulder against shoulder. Purse wedged between us like it’s going to absorb the sheer amount of “what the actual hell?”radiating off my body.
I freeze. He doesn’t move.
Am I fidgeting?
I don’t fidget. I exude calm. I radiate normal. I am the human embodiment of Google Calendar and overpriced concealer—
“I’m just adjusting my seatbelt,” I say too quickly, pulling at the strap like it had wronged me in a past life. “Safety first.”
“Da,” he murmurs, still not looking. “And truth second?”
Oh, my God. That’s it.
My brain’s throwing a full-on panic luau, complete with flaming torches and a pig roast labeled “Bella’s Last Shred of Sanity.” My heart’s doing the Macarena in a minefield, and I’m one wrong blink from turning this SUV into a confessional or a crime scene.
The twins, of course, pickthismoment to join the conversation.
“Papa hates liars,” Lev pipes up from the third row, his voice casual but slicing through my panic like a guillotine. He’s still scrolling his phone, headphones dangling, oblivious to the bomb he just dropped. “Remember when Nikolai tried to hide that he broke the drone? Papa grounded him for a month.”
Nikolai, nose buried inDune, snorts without looking up. “It was two weeks, idiot. And I didn’t lie—I just didn’t tell him.”
“Same thing,” Alya chimes in, her plush bear bouncing as she twists in her booster seat to face the boys. “Papa says the truth is like… um, like a shield. Right, Papa? You always know when someone’s not telling it.”
Konstantin’s gaze flicks to Alya, then back to me, and there’s a weight in it, a subtle edge that makes my stomach drop.
“That’s right,solnyshko,” he says, his voice calm but laced with something that makes my skin prickle. “The truth keeps you safe. Secrets… they leave you exposed.”
Oh, glittery fucknuggets, he’s reading my mind like a Russian lie-detector app!
My internal scream’s a full-blown disco inferno now. If he’s onto me, Julian and Lila are toast because Irina’s threat is a ticking glitter bomb, and Konstantin’s not exactly the hugs-and-forgiveness type.
I force a laugh, high-pitched and brittle, like a rom-com sidekick who’s about to get axed.
“Yeah, honesty’s the best policy, right? Like,totally.” My voice is a trainwreck, and I’m clutching my purse so tight my knuckles are screaming for mercy.
Konstantin’s lips twitch, not quite a smile, more like a wolf sizing up a particularly clueless lamb.
“Totally,” he echoes, his tone dry as a desert, and that one word is a fucking landmine. He leans back, iPad resting on his knee, but his eyes don’t leave mine, and I’m pretty sure he’s mentally dissecting my soul to find whatever I’m hiding.
“Papa’s like a human lie detector,” Lev says, grinning, still scrolling. “He caught me sneaking cookies last week just by looking at the crumbs on my shirt.”
Not helping, kiddo.
“Genius detective work,” Nikolai mutters, rolling his eyes, but there’s a fondness in it, like he’s proud of Konstantin’s terrifying radar. “You’re not exactly a mastermind, Lev.”
Alya giggles, hugging her bear. “Papa always knows! Like when I said I didn’t eat the glitter glue, but he saw it on my teeth!”
I choke on my own spit, coughing to cover the fact that my brain’s screaming:“HE KNOWS, HE KNOWS, AND I’M GONNA BE GLITTER-GLUE-GUILTY IN A DITCH!”
My heart’s doing cartwheels in a minefield, and I’m trying to smile like I’m not picturing Irina’s hitmen circling Julian and Lila’s school.
