She lunges across the room in four rapid steps, wrapping her small arms around him tighter than I thought she could. He hugs her back.
I stay in the doorway, watching the two of them, and a piece shifts in my chest. Only then do I realize that it was ever out of place.
Rolan raises his gaze to me and carefully extends his arm.
I immediately accept the invitation, joining the group hug. I’m enveloped in their warmth.
It’s heaven.
38
ELLIE
The days accumulate.
Rolan recovers with impatience, acting like rest is a personal slight against him, instead of what the doctor ordered.
Still, we settle into a routine, a life. All of us.
We share breakfast nearly every morning. Rolan inquires about Anya’s lessons and listens to the answers with an attentiveness that would surprise anyone who knows only the public version of him. He limps up the stairs at the end of the day, and I’m right there with him, providing whatever support I can.
It happens on a Tuesday, long past midnight.
The house has surrendered to silence. Rolan is propped against the headboard, his shoulder still bandaged. I’m beside him, my back against the pillows, my legs folded beneath the duvet.
The lamp on his side is off. Mine casts a low, amber glow that reaches just far enough to define the edges of his profile.
“Can I ask you something?” I say.
He turns his head on the pillow. His eyes find mine in the half-light. “You’re going to regardless.”
“Probably.” I pull the duvet higher. “Have you ever been afraid?”
The question settles between us. I expect deflection and raised eyebrows.
Instead, he stares at the ceiling for a long moment. His jaw works once, deciding whether to unlock a door he’s clearly kept bolted for years.
“Twice,” he finally confesses. “The night Anya was born. Her mother… The labor was complicated. Dangerous. There were decisions that had to be made in minutes that would determine whether?—”
He pauses.
“They brought her to me,” he continues. “This impossibly small creature. Her fist was closed around the edge of the blanket, and she was furious — already furious, already objecting to the indignity of the world she’d been delivered into.” I catch the shadow of a small, almost reflexive smile on his face. “I held her, and I remember thinking,I’ve built an empire and none of it matters. This is the only thing that matters.And the fear didn’t leave. It changed form. It became permanent, this awareness that the most important thing in my existence could be damaged, and that no amount of power or money or violence could guarantee her safety absolutely. That fear has never left me. It lives in every room she enters.”
The silence that follows is dense.
“And the second time?” I ask.
He turns his head and finds my eyes.
“The four days I spent not knowing where you were.”
The words arrive without decoration.
“I’ve been shot,” he continues. “Ambushed. I’ve buried men I considered brothers and negotiated with people who would have killed me if it served them better. None of those experiencesproduced fear.” He takes a breath. “But when you were taken, I couldn’t think clearly.”
I reach across the space between us and take his hand. He lets me. His fingers close around mine.
“I called you a mistake,” he swallows, almost like he can’t bear the memory. “And then I spent four days confronting the possibility that I would never get the chance to tell you how catastrophically wrong I was. That you would disappear into whatever Landon and Dushku had planned, and the last thing you would carry from me, the final thing my voice put into the world for you was that lie.”
