Rhea made a face. She made the face. Eyes wide, mouth open, tongue out. She covered her eyes with both hands and then opened her fingers just enough to peek and then closed them again.
"Eww. Eww. Eww. I did not need that. I am a child. Someone call Alek. I have been exposed."
"You are the boss," Chloe reminded her sweetly.
"I am unbossing. I quit. I am going to the kitchen to recover. With cookies. For my trauma."
She marched out with her hand over her eyes, then immediately marched back in to grab the dice because she did not trust either of us with them, then marched back out again.
Chloe was still laughing into my shoulder. I felt it more than I heard it. Her hair smelled like soap and the cold air she had brought in from the garden. The fire popped. The board sat half played between us. The wet spot on my knee from the melted towel was spreading, and I did not care.
I held her closer. I let myself sit in it.
In this room, my woman was warm against my side, my little sister was raiding the kitchen for cookies she had not earned, the fire was doing its job, and the watch on my wrist said it was hours before dark. That was one true thing.
The other true thing was the folder Ivan had closed. The names inside. The warehouse on the river and the warehouse not on the river. The cousin, the nephew, the wife. The shipment counts. The cops on the take. The men who had hurt her. The men who had tried to take me from her, from this room, fromthis fire, from the kid who would be back in a minute with crumbs on her chin.
Both were true. They sat side by side in my chest, and they did not cancel out.
I would hold this. And tonight, when Mikhail came for me, I would take the other apart.
Mine. All of it.
18
CHLOE
The clock on the mantel said past midnight, and I had given up pretending I was not counting the minutes.
Sienna was curled in the opposite armchair, bare feet tucked under her, a mug warming her hands. I had one too. Mine had gone cold ages ago. The sitting room was dim, only the two lamps on, the fire down to glowing logs, the long windows behind us black with night. Late autumn pressed against the glass like something that wanted in.
"They will come back," Sienna said, not looking up.
"I know."
"You are doing the thing with your jaw."
I let it go. I had not even noticed.
We had been like this for two hours. Tea, lamps low, the compound quiet around us in that particular way a house gets when its owners are not in it. Mikhail had called the recon at the tail of an argument I had only caught the edges of. Daniil had gone because Daniil went where his brother went. They had been out since just after dinner, and the kitchen staff had stopped offering food an hour ago and just kept the kettle warm. I had not eaten. Sienna had pretended to.
Sienna lifted her eyes over the rim of her mug. "So. You two okay now?"
"We are getting there."
She nodded slowly, considering me. "Yeah. You look blooming."
A warmth climbed up my neck before I could stop it. I looked into my cold tea so I could say the truth without watching her watch me say it.
"I love that even with his memory gone, he still wanted me the same way. Whatever it is he feels for me, it was not in his head. It was in the rest of him. That is the part I keep coming back to."
Sienna was quiet for a beat. Then her mouth pulled into a soft, knowing curve.
"He is still going to be jealous of anyone who breathes near you."
I laughed once, low. "Yeah. I would be lying if I said I hated it."
I was a little proud of it, honestly. Of being the thing he reached for first, even when he did not know my name.
