Not like a son looking at his mother. Like a man looking at something broken.
“You keep no one safe.”
Her face doesn’t crumble. That almost makes it worse.
She just goes still, the kind of stillness that looks practiced. Like she’s heard worse and maybe deserved it. Or maybe thinks she did.
Then Maksim’s eyes cut to the other woman.
“Vera,” he says.
Her shoulders pull tighter.
“I spared your life. Willyou…”
The words are soft. They still sound like a threat.
Her throat moves once before she nods. “I’ll watch over her, Pakhan.”
Pakhan.
The title lands strange.
Maksim gives one curt nod.
Then Vera moves too quickly, as if she forgot herself for a second. Her hand closes around his wrist.
He freezes.
His gaze drops to her hand.
No one breathes.
Vera snatches her fingers back like she touched fire. “Sorry,” she murmurs, the apology immediate, instinctive. Then, more carefully, “Vasilisa?”
Maksim’s eyes flash with recognition. My mind searches the list in my head. I don’t know that name.
But whatever lives inside him tightens so hard I can almost hear it.
His eyes lift to hers.
“Good.”
That’s all he says.
But Vera nods like she’s been given something vital. Relief flashes over her face so quickly it’s almost gone before I can name it.
Vasilisa. Good.
The words move around me like puzzle pieces from a picture I haven’t seen yet.
I look between them, trying to make sense of any of it, but tension has swallowed the room whole now. Thick. Breathing. Ready to split open.
His father is already halfway to the doorway, not bothering to check whether Maksim follows. Men like that expect obedience the way they expect air.
Maksim doesn’t look at me when he finally steps back.
That bothers me more than if he had.
