We make a small tower of them before the batter runs out and douse them with syrup and chocolate sauce. We sit at the table. Vera keeps her back to the wall. Habit. Raina sits opposite me, Nadia between us, feet not touching the floor, swinging absently. She insists her bear gets a tiny piece. Vera rolls her eyes but cuts one anyway.
“Is he your friend?” Nadia asks, pointing at me with her fork.
Raina looks at me over the girl’s head. There are too many answers in her eyes.
“He’s someone who keeps his word,” she says finally.
Nadia considers that, then shrugs and drowns her pancakes in syrup.
After, Vera takes her to the spare room’s bathroom to brush her teeth. Raina shadows them, testing every lock, every hinge, every vent like she expects a threat in the pipes. She forgets this place was designed for siege. Or she remembers and still checks everything anyway.
Vera appears in the doorway.
“She’s calling for you,” she says. “She wants you to read her a story.”
I read the bear story because Nadia asks. She’s in the narrow bed, covers pulled to her chin, the knitted bear tucked in with her. I sit on the edge of the mattress and open the small book we found in the drawer. A bear sleeps through winter. Snow falls. The world outside holds its breath. My voice softens on its own. I feel Raina’s eyes on the back of my neck, but I don’t look up.
By the time the bear reaches spring, Nadia’s eyelids are heavy. Her hand darts out and catches my wrist.
“You stay?” she asks, the word softened by sleep.
“Yes,” I say. “I stay.”
I step out onto the balcony. The sky over Moscow is blue, buildings sharp against it. The river glints. The wind cuts through my shirt, clean and cold. This is what I built. Stone. Glass. Money. Men. And somewhere inside all that, a child asleep with a stuffed bear and a woman who still looks at me like I'm both a weapon and shelter.
The door slides open behind me. I know her step now. I don't turn immediately.
Raina comes to stand at the rail, a half-step away. She wears one of the plain sweaters from the wardrobe and leggings, feet bare. Her hair is down, moving slightly in the wind.
“She fell asleep fast,” she says.
“She was tired.”
“Terrified,” Raina corrects.
“Those often travel together.”
We stand in silence for a moment, watching headlights streak along the bridge in the distance.
“I saw the patch,” she says. “On the man in the road.”
“Warehouse crew,” I say quietly.
“He’s not the only one,” she says. “You know that now.”
“Yes.”
“The Courier didn’t fall from the sky, Sergei. He grew in your soil. He learned your routes, your habits, your blind spots. You made him without knowing it, and then you left him out there long enough to decide you were the real target.”
Her words aren’t gentle, and they aren’t wrong.
“I thought the ones I spared were lucky. Now I see they were unfinished work.” I turn to face her.
She looks at me fully. “That’s why I came back,” she says. “Not because I forgive you. I’m not there. But because no one else in this city can pull out a problem this deep without tearing the whole thing down.”
She pauses, her gaze drifting to the icy-blue city spread beneath us. When she speaks again, her voice is low. “And because Nadia deserves more from you than a name.”
She hesitates, then lifts her hand, her fingers brushing my jaw. Her eyes search mine, as if she expects me to flinch or laugh. I don’t.
