“We made it to Chicago,” I say.
“Thank fuck,bratan.” His relief is audible, unguarded in a way that would have embarrassed him once. “I was half-convinced I’d get a call telling me they’d found you in a ditch.”
“I didn’t survive four years to end up in a ditch.” I move to the window, scanning the street below out of habit. “Especially not now that Lauren and Hannah are with me.”
A brief pause.
“Speaking of,” he says, and I brace myself. “Hannah. Does she know who you are?”
The question lands exactly where it always does. “She will.”
“Khorosho, bratok.”He exhales. “Sophia hasn’t stopped worrying since we got the call. About both of them.”
“Look at you,” I say, the corner of my mouth pulling into a smirk. “Domesticated.”
“He says, from a safe house with his family.” A beat of silence. “And speaking of Sophia—" Timur starts.
“What about her?”
“She’s pregnant.”
"Blyad."I close my eyes briefly. “Congratulations, bratok.Ty stanesh' ottsom.”
“Lauren didn’t tell you?”
“Nyet.”The word comes out flat. “She didn’t.”
I can’t be angry about it. Lauren speaks to me when necessary and not a word more. That’s the quiet arrangementwe’ve settled into, unspoken and mutual, and I understand it even when it costs me. But this—learning something this significant secondhand—sits differently.
“I’m happy for you,bratan,” I say. “I mean it.”
“You don’t sound it.”
“Things are tense here. Lauren and I are...” I search for the right word. “Navigating. She’s talking to me, but only just. Sometimes I think she’d prefer it if the funeral four years ago had been real.”
“Da,” Timur says, without judgment. “I can understand that.”
The honesty is something I’ve always valued in him. He’s never told me what I wanted to hear.
“Anything on Aslanov?”
“Nothing concrete yet. But you and I both know it’s a matter of time. Now that Lauren and Hannah are settled, we need to think about our next move.” I watch a cab slow at the intersection below, then pull away. “Can you still find loyal men? People who didn’t fully cross over when he took the empire?”
“I’ll make some calls.” His voice shifts into the something I know—focused, certain.
“Good. Stay in touch.”
I end the call and pocket the phone.
Downstairs, I find Lauren at the kitchen table.
She has an apple in one hand and a small knife in the other, cutting it into pieces small enough for Hannah. Precise, careful cuts—the kind of unconscious attentiveness that comes from years of doing something for someone you love. Hannah is talking, a continuous cheerful monologue I can’t quite make out from the stairs, and a small smile has found its way to Lauren’s mouth.
I stay where I am.
I always knew she was strong. I knew it from a distance, through glass, over four years of watching. She rebuilt herself after what I did to her—rebuilt her career, built a life, raised our daughter—and somewhere in the process she became something even more formidable than the woman I remembered.
I’d told myself that was enough. That knowing they were safe and whole and flourishing was enough.
