“They will not leave my sight. I swear it,” he vowed.
I nodded, more to myself than to him.
“Spasibo,” I murmured.
Offering my thanks was not something I did often. But Valentin and Nikolai had earned it.
With the call disconnected I finally faced my brother.
For a moment his excitement became contagious.
I was apapochka.
Chapter 57
Iskra
Runa squealed in delight as another cat drew closer, only for it to halt mid-step at the force of her excitement. She sat in her little plush play ring, taking in the sounds and scents and people around her with the focused attention of someone cataloguing a new world.
I only had to produce the large bag of cat treats for others to converge around us. Even when Runa’s hand bumped clumsily against a few of them they didn’t retaliate—patient creatures, or perhaps simply experienced with small humans. I was spreading treats across the grass away from the blanket when I noticed the man.
A quick assessment told me he wasn’t there with family. His posture against the tree was the specific combination of casual and alert that I had learned to read in another life entirely—in doorways and on staircases, watching men who didn’t know they were being watched. His hair was light brown. I looked down without making it obvious. Polished shoes. Tailored trousers. A crisp white shirt tucked in with the precision of someone who dressed for function rather than a day in the park.
I emptied the rest of the treats onto the grass and turned to survey the space.
Front. Back. Sides.
Two men by the entrance. One looked away. The other looked directly at me—a fraction of a second, then gone.
I knew. They knew.
My mind seemed to falter for just a moment—the particular lurch of a plan that had held for months suddenly recalculating. I wasn’t just on the run anymore. I was on the run with a four-and-a-half-month-old who was happily chomping on her fist, drool running down her wrist, entirely unaware that the world had just shifted beneath us.
I began packing. Slowly enough not to signal. Quickly enough to matter.
When I glanced up they were gone. I turned a full circle.
Nothing.
I wasn’t fooled.
Fear like nothing I had known before moved through me and hardened into something useful before it could become paralysis. Not for long. I had to act.
I hung the hastily packed bag on the pram and lifted Runa free of her ring, prying it gently from around her before strapping her in and stuffing the ring beneath the seat. Then I walked—not ran, walking didn’t attract attention—out of the park and along the main road beside the Bosphorus. No one followed. Or if they did, I couldn’t find them, which was almost worse.
I turned into the first internationally recognised hotel I reached—the kind with a lobby full of people and cameras and staff who had seen everything. I bought a scarf from the shop inside, then left the pram and the bag where they stood.
The only thing I took was the cotton scarf she loved.
I wrapped the burgundy material around her, pulled it close, and when the taxi came I walked out and didn’t look back.
??????
Time. Time. Time.
I needed time. Runa was due a feed but wouldn’t be hungry enough to take one yet. I sat her in her floor seat and ran around the counter to grab the stored baby food I’d bought for her future solids and the breast milk from the freezer.
The suitcase was always packed and ready to go. It had been packed since the day we arrived. Everything we needed was inside it. I wrapped the milk bottles in paper towels before placing them into multiple plastic bags to insulate them.
