Page 173 of Merciless Daddy

“No,” she said again.

I did not press the lie yet. I had asked whether she had acted. She had not.

Yelena looked down at her hands.

“Every time someone gets hurt, I think maybe he is right,” she said. “Maybe the people around me pay for keeping me. Maybe I am just too expensive.”

I leaned forward and placed both hands over her shoulders. She went quiet beneath my palms.

“Listen to me,” I said. “Thoughts are not disobedience.”

Her breath caught.

“Fear is not betrayal. Wanting to protect people is not a sin. It is one of the things I love about you.”

She tipped her head back just enough to look at me.

“But?”

“But Gianni wants to turn that love into a leash.”

I brushed my thumb along the side of her neck.

“You don’t have to pretend you never think about leaving. You only have to tell me when you do.”

Her eyes shone in the firelight.

“I hate that I think it.”

“I know.”

“I hate that part of me thinks it would work.”

“I know that too.”

The clock on the mantel moved toward eleven-thirty.

I looked at her coloring book again. The page remained blank.

“Are you overwhelmed?” I asked.

She stiffened.

There was the question. The simple door I had held open for her all day.

I watched her face move through the answer she knew I needed.

Then the old reflex arrived first.

“I’m fine, Daddy.”

My chest tightened. Not rage. Never rage. Sadness, perhaps. Because she wanted so badly to be good that she still believed being fine was the requirement.

My hands remained gentle on her shoulders.

“Try again,” I said.

She swallowed. Her mouth opened. Nothing came out. I waited.