I couldn't finish the sentence because Katya was already pushing past Xavier with the unstoppable force of a very small Russian woman who had decided where she was going, and Xavier, to his credit, simply stepped aside and let the force of nature through.
"Molly." Katya's voice broke on my name. She was tiny—shorter than me, which was saying something—with white-blonde hair pulled into a braid and enormous blue eyes that were currently swimming with tears. She stopped at the edge ofthe bed like she'd hit an invisible wall, her hands clasped in front of her, her whole body vibrating with the effort of not launching herself at me. "Oh, Molly. Oh,myshka."
Little mouse.Which was funny coming from her. "Hi," I said, and my voice wobbled, but I opened my arms.
She was on the bed in a heartbeat, her arms around me with a careful tenderness that told me someone—Xavier—had briefed her on my physical state. She smelled like expensive perfume and something sweet, like vanilla, and her embrace was so different from Xavier's, smaller, softer, the hug of someone who understood fragility from the inside, that a different kind of tears came. Not the desperate, drowning tears of the first night. These were warmer. Quieter. The tears of being found by someone who'd been looking.
"I'm sorry," Katya whispered against my hair. "I'm so sorry we didn't find you sooner. Boris tore this city apart, Molly. He had every person he knew searching. When Gideon's team found the warehouse—" She pulled back, her hands on my shoulders, her blue eyes fierce and bright.
"I'm okay," I said, which was such an absurd lie that Katya's expression told me exactly what she thought of it. "I'm getting there. Xavier's been—"
"I know." Her eyes flicked to the doorway where Xavier still stood, arms crossed, watching. Something passed between them, almost an acknowledgment, a sizing up, the silent negotiation of two people who both considered me theirs in different ways. Katya was Boris's Little. She understood the dynamic I was stumbling into with Xavier in a way that most people couldn't, and the look she gave him was equal parts gratitude and warning.Thank you for keeping her safe. Hurt her and I will end you in ways my husband hasn't invented yet.
Xavier, for his part, simply inclined his head. Message received.
"You look thin," Katya said, turning back to me with the kind of blunt honesty that only someone who genuinely loved you could deliver without it stinging. Her fingers found mine and squeezed. "But you look alive. And you're sitting up. That's—" Her voice hitched.
"I'm here," I said, squeezing her fingers back. "I'm here, and I'm getting better."
The sound of heels on hardwood announced the second visitor before she appeared in the doorway, and the contrast between Katya's entrance and Maria's was the kind of thing that told you everything you needed to know about two people without a single word being spoken.
Where Katya had stopped at the edge of the bed and waited for permission, Maria Volkov swept into the room like she was entering a restaurant where she had a standing reservation. She was taller than Katya, darker-haired, with the kind of angular beauty that photographed well and the kind of wardrobe that itemized cost more than most people's monthly rent. Her smile was immediate and wide and perfectly calibrated. The smile of a woman who had mastered the art of looking concerned while simultaneously cataloging every detail of a room for later use.
"Molly, oh my God." She pressed a hand to her chest, her manicured nails catching the light. "Look at you. We've been absolutely sick with worry. The children have been asking about you every single day. Sasha drew you a picture, I have it in my bag somewhere."
She crossed to the bed and bent down to embrace me, and the hug was different from Katya's in ways I couldn't articulate immediately. It was the right shape. The right duration. The right amount of pressure. But it felt like a performance of a hug rather than a hug, as if someone had studied the choreography but couldn't quite hear the music.
I was being uncharitable. Maria had always been good to me. She paid well, she was generous with time off, and her children—Sasha, Luka, and tiny Anya—were the brightest spots in my life before everything went dark. I had no reason to distrust her concern.
But something about Maria's smile didn't quite reach the same depth as her words.
"You look so much better than I expected," Maria said, settling herself on the chair Doc usually occupied with the ease of someone accustomed to making any space her own. She crossed her legs, smoothed her skirt, and tilted her head at an angle that conveyed sympathetic interest. "When Katya told me—well, I won't upset you with the details. The important thing is that you're safe now."
"She is," Xavier said from the doorway. Quiet. Definitive. Two words that drew a line in the air like a perimeter fence.
Maria's gaze slid to him, and I watched her perform the same assessment Katya had, but with a different conclusion. Where Katya had seen a protector and granted him cautious respect, Maria saw something else—an obstacle, maybe, or an unknown variable in an equation she'd already been solving in her head. Her smile didn't waver, but her eyes sharpened.
She extended her hand with the kind of grace that made the gesture look like she was conferring an honor rather than requesting a handshake. "I can't thank you enough for what you and your team did."
Xavier shook her hand. Brief, professional, the handshake of a man who was being polite because the woman he was protecting had guests, not because he felt any particular need to be liked. "She's in good hands," he said, and it wasn't a reassurance. It was a statement of territorial fact. He glanced at me. “I’ll be in the kitchen if you need anything.”
Maria's smile flickered as Xavier left. A nanosecond adjustment that someone less hypervigilant than I'd become might have missed entirely. "I’m so glad you seem comfortable. Such a huge change to your apartment must be—"
"My apartment," I said in alarm. I hadn't thought about my apartment. Hadn't thought about the little one-bedroom on Elm Street with its creaky floors and the window that stuck and the shelf of picture books I'd collected for story time with Sasha and Luka. It existed in the Before, and the Before was a country I'd been deported from. "I don't even know if my rent—"
"Boris handled it," Katya said quickly, her hand tightening on mine. "Your apartment is exactly as you left it. The landlord waived your rent and keep things maintained. Your things are safe."
The relief was distant, theoretical. Like being told your house survived a hurricane when you were still standing in the floodwater.
"The children have missed you so much," Maria said, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees, and her voice had shifted into something warmer, more intimate, the voice of a woman confiding in a friend rather than checking on a patient. "Anya won't stop asking where Molly went. And Luka's been acting out at school—his teacher called me twice last week. I've been managing on my own, of course, but it's been—" She caught herself, waving a hand as if swatting the complaint away. "No, that's not important right now. What matters is you."
But I'd heard it. The carefully planted seed, wrapped in self-deprecation and maternal concern.I've been managing on my own.The unspoken corollary:and it's been difficult, and I need you back.Which was ridiculous.I only cared for the children on Sheila’s days off. Which meant Maria was only having to manage two days a week. College was another thing I’d have to sort out, but I firmly pushed that thought away.
"Maria." Katya's voice carried a note of warning, the kind of tone that passed between family members who'd had this conversation before.
"What? I'm not saying anything." Maria held up both hands, the picture of innocence. "I'm just telling her the children miss her. That's all. Children are allowed to miss people." She turned back to me with that calibrated smile. "We don't have to talk about any of that now. You just focus on getting better. Although—" She glanced around the bedroom with an expression that was meticulously casual. "I do wonder if you wouldn't be more comfortable somewhere more... familiar? Your own space, your own things, or recuperate at mine. You know we’d love to have you. I'm sure Mr. Moreno has been incredibly generous, but this can't be a long-term arrangement. You must feel like you're imposing."
The word landed like a knife in my chest.
