I had to smile. “That explains the improvement in your English.”
Her cheeks pinked. “Let us say I have a much wider vocabulary.” She paused before adding, “She’s here.”
I stilled. “In Milan?”
She nodded. “She’s been here the whole time. Different schedules. Different rinks.” She took a breath. “We meet in her room in the Village. We don’t… overlap where anyone can see.” She swallowed, and I caught a glimpse of raw emotion. “When we can overlap long enough to pretend it isn’t temporary.”
I let that settle before asking, “What does Donna know about us?”
“Everything,” Mila said simply. “About what people think we are. About why we let them think it.”
“And she’s okay with it?”
Another hard swallow. “She hates it, but she understands why it exists.”
“And yet she stays with you.”
Mila’s smile reached her eyes, her face glowing. “Yes. Which scares me more than if she didn’t.” She traced one finger around the rim of her cup before looking at me again. “I’m tired, Luka.”
I had heard Mila angry before. Frustrated. Determined. Exhausted after training.
I could not remember hearing her sound defeated.
“I’m tired of planning my entire life around hiding.”
I looked at her differently then. So much I’d missed.
“I should have noticed,” I said in a low voice.
“You had your own disaster happening.”
“That’s not an excuse.”
Her expression softened. “No. Probably not.”
I stared down at my coffee for a moment before speaking again.
“I don’t know what’s happening to me.” The words created an ache in my chest.
Mila huffed. “That part I noticed.” She reached across the table and took my hands in hers. I knew how it would look, but I didn’t stop her. I needed that connection.
I stared at our joined hands.
For years, Mila had been the one constant in my life. The one person who knew what the federation demanded, what Sokolov expected, what it cost to survive inside that system.
The one person I never had to explain myself to.
“For years I thought I understood my life.”
Mila waited.
“Now I’m not sure of anything.”
“That’s terrifying for you.”
“Yes.”
“And exciting?”
