“Mikhail is my uncle,” I say. “My father’s brother. He’s been in the business longer than I have.”
I watch Elizabeth process the information.
Mikhail isn’t just an advisor. He’s blood.
“I had no idea,” she says, looking at Mikhail softer than before.
Mikhail shrugs. “Rolan prefers to keep personal relationships private. An old habit.”
“A necessary one,” I correct.
Elizabeth nods, accepting the response, then turns to Alexei. “And you, Alexei? What’s your role?”
Alexei handles it well. He always does, with the practiced ease of a man who’s been answering questions about his employment for years.
“Operations,” he says. “I manage the logistical side of Rolan’s business. I like to think of myself as his right hand, though he’d never admit it.”
He grins.
“And Dmitri?” she asks. “Your driver. What’s his deal? I’ve been trying to have a conversation with him for six weeks, and the longest response I’ve gotten is a grunt.”
The question is light. Casual. The table laughs. Mikhail lets out a quiet chuckle, Alexei opens a grin, but the back of my neck prickles with an irritation I don’t immediately understand.
Why does she want to know about Dmitri?
The question is irrational. She’s making conversation,asking about a member of the household she interacts with daily. A question anyone would ask.
But the irritation is there, territorial. The same instinct that fired when Marku spoke about her at the dinner, the animal response to someone else occupying space near what I’ve decided is mine.
She’s an employee. A woman I’ve put my fingers inside, who’s had my cock in her mouth, and who owes me nothing beyond her contracted duties.
The possessiveness is irrational.
“That’s just Dmitri,” Alexei says. “The man communicates exclusively through monosyllables and disapproval. We’ve been trying to crack him for years.”
“I asked him about his favorite food once,” Elizabeth says. “He looked at me like I’d threatened his family.”
The table laughs again.
I watch. I drink my wine. I let the evening exist as what it is. The closest thing to normal that this house has produced in years.
Dessert arrives, a chocolate tart, dense and rich, that Anya attacks with the focused enthusiasm of a child who has been waiting for this moment since the meal began.
The conversation continues. Light. Easy.
Mikhail tells a story about a supplier who mixed up a shipment — sanitized, civilian-safe, a logistics error, when it is actually about three hundred kilos of product arriving at the wrong warehouse. Alexei adds embellishments.
Elizabeth listens and engages. When Anya asks for hot chocolate after dessert, Elizabeth shakes her head.
“Not tonight, sweetheart. You’ve had enough sugar with the tart.”
Anya’s face cycles through the stages — protest, negotiation, acceptance. “But?—”
“I’ll make you an extra special one tomorrow. With the good chocolate. Deal?”
Anya considers, weighing the idea, and accepts it with the gravity of a diplomat conceding a minor point. “Deal.”
She’s not afraid to say no to the people she likes. Interesting.
