Like I’m an object being assessed for weaknesses.
My shoulders go instinctively tighter.
And then I see the women.
One sits on the long sofa near the fire, spine straight, hands folded in her lap. Blonde hair. Blue eyes. Elegant in the kind of way that doesn’t need to announce itself. Her face is beautiful, but severe, angles striking andcold. Her gaze lands on me, then shifts to Maksim, and for one strange second, fear flickers over her features so fast I almost think I imagined it.
The second woman is standing by the mantel. Also blonde. Also blue-eyed.
But this one—
My breath catches.
She looks like Maksim.
Not exactly. She’s older, softer in the mouth, more polished where he’s all hard edges and damage. But the resemblance is there in flashes that hit too fast to ignore: the shape around the eyes, the set of the cheekbones, the arrogant line of the chin. It’s like seeing his face translated into another language.
Something cold slides through me.His mother.
Maksim’s hand leaves my back.
The loss of it is immediate.
The dark-haired man sets down his drink with a soft clink.
“Well, you came,” he says in Russian, then switches to English for my benefit with ease smooth enough to feel intentional. “Saved me a trip.”
His voice is low. Cultured. Controlled.
I know men like that.
The ones who never need to raise their voices because the room will bend itself into silence before they ask.
Maksim says nothing.
The blonde woman by the mantel looks at him a second longer, and when she speaks, her voice is cool but careful, as if she’s approaching something wounded enough to bite.
“You’re late, son. Your father doesn’t like to wait.”
Maksim laughs once. No humor in it.
“Then don’t wait for me next time.”
The seated blonde woman’s fingers tighten together in her lap.
No one misses it.
No one mentions it either.
My eyes move between them, piecing together fragments without knowing what picture I’m making yet.
His father looks at me again. “And this is?”
Maksim doesn’t speak, but everyone can feel his claim—violent, instinctive, ready to bare its teeth.
Instead he says, “Ayla.”
Just that.
