Page 38 of The Pakhan’s Debt by Leona White

A man in line asks the staff girl by the bread rack if I’m somebody famous. Some politician’s daughter, maybe. He says it lightly, just making talk while he points at a poppyseed bun glazed enough to shine. The girl glances toward the door where my guards are already shifting around me, catches the insignia at one man’s cuff, and lowers her voice badly.

“No,” she says. “Volkov.”

The man goes still. “That girl?”

The girl shrugs one shoulder, eager and uneasy at once. “People are saying she’s the listed key.”

I keep walking.

My escorts follow me back to the car with the same plastic faces. By the time I get in, my stomach has started rolling.

The car ride back feels too long and too close. My guards sit where they always do, one in front, one beside the driver, one half turned toward me. Nobody speaks. Good. If one of them tries, I may bite.

By the time we reach the estate, my skin feels too tight. The SUV rolls through the open gates and up the drive without stopping until the front steps come into view. One guard gets out first while we’re still moving slowly, then another, both of them peeling off into position before my door opens. When I step out, the house is already watching. Two men by the entrance. One near the side path. Maksim standing above them all under the covered passage just past the short run of stone steps, one hand in his coat pocket.

I take the steps without hurrying.

The older guard from the bakery run falls in beside me for half a second too long. “You handled town well, Miss,” he says. “Better than most women do with this kind of arrangement.”

I stop.

He says it, then goes still like he’s stepped past his line. His face doesn’t change, but the words stick.

I turn my head. “Did I ask for your review?”

His mouth flattens.

That’s when I hear Maksim move above us. I’m wrung out and close to coming apart, so I climb the stairs fast, let myself into my room, lock the door, and throw the shopping bags onto the bed without opening them. The paper dress bag lands on its side. The bakery box slides into the duvet. I kick off one shoe near the chair, the other near the wardrobe, and lie down across the coverlet fully dressed.

For a minute, I stare at the ceiling.

Then I fold in on myself.

I pull my knees up and wrap my arms around my middle, making myself smaller until there’s nowhere else to go. I hate the position. I’m a grown woman, a law student, and someone who spent years getting her act together, but none of that helps.

I want my mother so badly, I can barely breathe.

She used to buy me white dresses with gold stitching at the collar and pin flowers into my hair with careful fingers. She’d tilt my face up between her hands and smile like I was something bright. You’ll rob a prince’s heart, Solnyshko.

Wonderful.

There’s a knock.

“Go away,” I say into the blanket.

“No,” Mrs. Wentworth says through the door.

I close my eyes. Five minutes later, she knocks again.

I drag myself up, wipe at my face, and open the door with my teeth clenched.

She takes one look at me and steps inside without asking. I’m too tired to hold the line, and she’s the closest thing in this house to comfort. I grab her and cry.

Her arms come around me at once. “There, there,” she says, one hand rubbing my back in slow circles. “Let it out, then.”

I hate how much that helps.

She settles me on the bed, presses tissues into my hand, brings water from the carafe, and waits until I drink. Then she sets things right quietly, shoes paired, bag set upright, curtain drawn halfway against the sun.