"You invited me."
"So I did." He descends the stairs slowly, taking his time, and I watch him the way I've learned to watch him—searching for the monster beneath the surface, the thing that ordered those cages, the man who built an empire on bones. But all I see is him. Grey eyes. Silver at the temples. A mouth that knows how to smile in a way that makes my chest ache.
He reaches the bottom of the stairs and stops a few feet away. His eyes travel over me—the blue dress, the borrowed heels, the hair I spent an hour trying to tame. He doesn't look at my chest. He looks at my face. My eyes. The dark circles I couldn't hide.
"You look beautiful," he says.
"I look like I haven't slept in a week."
"Beautiful and tired. They're not mutually exclusive."
He offers me his arm. I take it, because I don't know what else to do with my hands, and he leads me through the foyer and into a room that might be called a parlor or a sitting room or something else that rich people have names for. There's a fire in the fireplace, crackling and warm, and there are paintings on the walls—real paintings, oils, the kind that cost more than my father's farm.
And there is Gabe.
He's standing by the fire, one hand on the mantel, the other holding a glass of something amber. He's wearing a sweater—dark green, soft-looking, the kind of thing that probably cost more than my rent but looks like it was made for him. His hair is messy, like he's been running his hands through it, and his eyes are fixed on me with an intensity that makes my stomach flip.
He's been coming to the diner for two weeks. Every night. Sitting at the counter, drinking coffee, asking questions about veterinary school and the farm and the mother I lost. He told me his name was Gabe. He told me he was a pre-med student, home for break, trying to figure out what kind of doctor he wanted to be.
He didn't tell me his last name.
He didn't tell me he was Aleksander's son.
"Monika," Gabriel says, and his voice is different here. Softer. More careful. Like he's afraid of breaking something. "I didn't know you were coming."
"I didn't know you lived here."
The silence stretches between us—thin, fragile, full of everything we didn't say to each other in the diner. I feel Aleksander's hand on my arm, his fingers pressing gently, and I realize he's watching us. Watching both of us. His expression is unreadable, but there's something in his eyes that looks like calculation. Like he's measuring something.
"Gabriel is my son," Aleksander says.
"I didn't know that."
"Now you do."
Gabriel sets down his glass. He walks toward me, slow and hesitant, and I see the nervousness in the way he holds himself—the slight slump of his shoulders, the way his hands curl and uncurl at his sides. He's not like his father. He doesn't know how to hide.
"I should have told you," he says. "At the diner. I should have told you who I was."
"You told me who you were. You told me you wanted to be a doctor. You told me you were trying to be something different." I hold his gaze. "That's more than your father has ever told me."
Gabriel's eyes flick to Aleksander—a quick, anxious glance—and then back to me. "My father is..."
"Dangerous," Aleksander finishes. "Complicated. Not someone you should trust." He says it without heat, without apology, like he's describing the weather. "Shall we eat? The food is getting cold."
Dinner is served in a room that might once have been a ballroom. The table is long—too long for three people—and we sit at one end, clustered together like survivors on a raft. Candles flicker between us, casting shadows that move across the walls like dancers.
The food is exquisite. Courses arrive and depart—soup, salad, something with lamb that melts on my tongue, something with chocolate that makes me close my eyes. I don't know the names of any of it. I don't know which fork to use or which glass is for water and which is for wine. I watch Gabriel and copy him, and he pretends not to notice.
Aleksander watches both of us.
He asks me about the diner. About Del, about the regulars. He asks me about the warehouse—not directly, but in the spaces between words, in the way his eyes linger on my hands when I reach for my wine.
I answer. I don't lie, but I don't tell the truth either. I tell him what he wants to hear, because I've learned that's what you do with men like him. You give them enough to keep them interested, and you keep the rest for yourself.
Gabriel is different.
He asks me about Mercy. About the calf I delivered when I was ten. About the way it felt to pull her into the world, to watch her stand on legs that were too long for her body, to name her something that meant something.
