Her face goes cold. “You sound like him when you talk like that.”
I know which him she means.
Dmitri.
Or Sergei.
Maybe both.
It shouldn’t affect me. It does.
My jaw tightens. “I am not either of them.”
“Then stop making decisions for me like I’m furniture you moved into your house.”
I lean back, forcing my voice even. “I’m making decisions because I have enemies who will not ask your permission before using you.”
“And I’m supposed to just accept that?”
“No. You can hate it. You can shout. You can call me controlling, cruel, impossible. You can do all of that from inside the gates.”
She stares at me. Her eyes shine, but not with tears. Anger. Frustration. The kind that has nowhere to go because the cage has been explained too well.
That’s worse than a cage with no reason.
I know that. I have lived it.
“I don’t want to be protected like this,” she says quietly.
“I know.”
“I mean it.”
“So do I.”
She looks away first. Breakfast continues, but the peace is gone. She eats less after that. I don’t tell her to eat more. I’m not entirely without instinct.
By the time I finish my coffee, Viktor appears in the doorway. He doesn’t enter fully. That tells me enough.
“What?” I ask.
His eyes flick once to Anya, then back to me. “One of the river warehouses was hit.”
Anya turns toward him. “Hit?”
Viktor ignores the question because he’s not sure if he’s allowed to answer her.
I stand. “Damage?”
“Fire in the east section. Two men injured. One missing. They say it was planned.”
My father moves faster than I expected.
I button my jacket.
Anya rises too. “What happened?”
“A warehouse fire.”
