He nods. “We go to my aunt,” he says. “Then home together.”
I nod as the car heads in the direction of Aunt Tanya’s apartment. When we get there, she opens the door and pulls us both inside without a word. Her eyes scan Sergei’s bandage, his bruised cheek, my sooty coat.
“You’re not dead,” she says. “Good. Take off your shoes. Don’t scare the child with boots and blood.”
Raina of old might have laughed. I just obey. My legs still feel a little shaky.
Nadia bursts in from the kitchen, bear in hand. She freezes when she sees me.
“Mama,” she whispers.
I drop to my knees and open my arms. She slams into me so hard, I rock back. Her little hands grab my neck, my hair, my shoulders. She’s shaking. “You came back,” she says over and over, voice muffled in my collar.
“I came back,” I say. My own voice cracks and all the tears I’ve been holding back finally begin to fall. “I told you I would.”
Sergei stands above us. His face softens in a way I rarely see in front of others. He crouches and wraps both of us in his arms. For a moment, all three of us fit in the same small circle. I feel his chest against my back, Nadia’s heartbeat against mine.
“Did you find the bad man?” Nadia asks after a while. She pulls back enough to look at my face.
“Yes,” I say. I don’t blur it with lies. “We found him. He can’t hurt us anymore.”
“Is he in jail?” she asks.
I hesitate. Sergei answers. “He’s gone,” he says. “That world is finished for him.”
Nadia studies us both. Then she nods, as if she understands more than she should. “Good,” she says.
Aunt Tanya sniffs. “You talk about killers at my table and then you eat soup,” she says. “No one has manners anymore.”
We do eat the soup. It is hot and salty and solid in my empty stomach. Nadia sits between us, spoon working, eyes glued to our faces as if afraid we will vanish if she looks away.
After lunch, we pack Nadia’s things. She says goodbye to the cat, which scratches Sergei’s boot on principle. We promise Aunt Tanya she will have guards on her door for as long as we need. She smacks Sergei’s arm and tells him to bring flowers next time.
On the stairs down, Nadia slips her hand into mine and then into his, joining us. “We go home now,” she says.
“Yes,” Sergei says. “The three of us.”
The apartment feelsdifferent when we come back.
Some of that is in my head. Some of it is real. There are fewer staff. Vlad meets us in the entry with a tired face and clear eyes.
“We swept everyone again,” he reports. “We pulled anyone with a touch to Ilya’s money. We locked the system down to local only. No external feeds left unsanitized. The house is clean now. Or as clean as a place like this can be.”
Sergei nods. “Good work,” he says.
I look toward the hall where Anastasia used to stand. There is an empty space there now.
“Any change?” I ask quietly.
Vlad shakes his head once. “No,” he says. “It stays as we left it.”
I squeeze Nadia’s shoulder and steer her toward her room. “Go check if your bears missed you,” I tell her. “I’ll come tuck you in after a bath.”
She runs ahead, excited at the thought of seeing her own bed again.
Sergei watches her go with a strange expression. It is part relief, part fear, part something I do not want to name yet.
We settle Nadia fast. Bath, pajamas, favorite story. She fights sleep at first, then loses the fight in ten minutes. Her small hand curls around Sergei’s thumb as he sits on the edge of her bed. I stand in the doorway and watch them.
