Gregor's hand settled on my shoulder. Ivan kissed the side of my head like it was the most natural thing in the world, which for him it probably was.
"So," Ivan said, the smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. "Are we dismantling his syndicate now, or after lunch?"
I laughed into Artem's neck, surrounded by the scent of my pack, the three of them pressing close enough that I couldn't tell where I ended and they began.
"After lunch," I said. "I'm starving."
25
Maeve
The immediate aftermath oftelling my father to get out of my house was not the breakdown I'd spent three years bracing for.
It was lunch.
I sat in the dining room with my hands still faintly trembling and ate roast chicken, potatoes, and half a basket of bread as though threatening a man who'd once locked me in a bedroom for three days had been a form of high-intensity interval training.
Ivan watched like he was witnessing a magic trick. Gregor moved the butter dish closer to my plate without comment. Artem didn't say a word, but every time my pulse kicked up, his thumb stroked once across the inside of my wrist and settled it back down.
The dining room had tall windows facing the south lawn, and the rain was soft and steady against the glass. Outside, myfather's tire tracks were still gouged into the gravel. By tomorrow the grounds staff would rake them smooth and nobody would know he'd ever been here.
That felt symbolic. Possibly too symbolic. I blamed the postpartum hormones, which had apparently decided that today's emotional register would be "high drama with a side of butter."
The realization I had nothing left to run from didn't arrive with a choir or a shard of sunlight. It arrived while I was reaching for a second roll.
The knife was in my hand and I wasn't flinching. My hand was steady. My heartbeat was elevated but not panicked. Outside, the rain blurred the windows. Inside, nobody owned me. Nobody expected me to lower my eyes. Nobody was waiting for gratitude in exchange for not being cruel.
I looked around the table and felt the absurdity of my old life pressing against the edges of this one. The beatings. The locked doors. The other women in my bed while I sat upstairs and pretended I couldn't hear. My father's voice telling me I was currency, I was an investment, I was disappointing the family. All of it suddenly seemed like a very badly written play I'd been forced to perform in and could now review with the clarity of distance.
But I wasn't hiding anymore. The door to my past had been closed so hard I half-expected a cartoon puff of smoke.
That night, after the house had gone quiet and Mac had been fed and settled, I stood in my bathroom, brushing my hair.
White marble. Brass fixtures. A freestanding tub big enough to drown in or throw a small party in, depending on your priorities. Heated floors beneath my bare feet. A mirror framed in antiquegold that would probably cost more than my first car, if I'd ever owned a car, which I hadn't, because I'd been too busy running.
Fergus came and sat at my feet. He’d done his final patrol of the nursery. Gregor was teaching him well. He made three circuits of the room, one bark at the curtains, the routine was becoming comical.
I picked him up. “Are you happy, Fergus?”
His tongue poked out of mouth and licked my nose.
“I take that as a yes. Me too.”
Then the lock clicked.
I turned.
Artem was leaning against the doorframe. He'd shed his jacket and tie, the top buttons of his shirt undone, his sleeves rolled to the elbow. The way he was looking at me wasn't careful. It wasn't reverent. It was the look of a man who had spent months holding back a tide and had just decided to let it drown him.
The scent of my pack mates hit me before he moved. Champagne, caramel and storm clouds, thick enough to taste.
Slick ran down my thighs before he'd taken a single step.
I placed Fergus on the floor as Artem walked toward me. Not fast. Not hesitant.
By the time he reached me, I was already reaching for him. He gripped my hips and lifted me onto the vanity like I weighed nothing, stepping between my legs, his chest pressing against mine through the thin silk of my robe.
"You handled him." His voice was low gravel, the register he used for promises and threats and occasionally both at once. "You stood in front of the man who sold you and you broke him in half."
