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Oksana brings a strip of white cloth from the bedroom. Alexei wraps it around the dinosaur twice and ties a neat knot.

Misha inspects it. “Good.”

He tilts his head. “Papa bandaged it.”

I gently squeeze his cheeks between my fingers until his lips push forward. He laughs and shakes his head. “No, no.”

Then he runs back to Oksana with the bandaged dinosaur, and she takes him to his room.

Alexei gets up and opens the kitchen cabinets.

“What are you doing?” I ask.

“Checking supplies.”

He takes out yogurt, crackers, rice, pasta, apples, jam, and the yellow cup, then compares them with the notebook in his pocket. He checks the nasal aspirator, fever reducer, thermometer, ointments, skin cream, and child-safe bandages stored in the locked cabinet beside the kitchen.

Then he walks to the attached playroom. It opens on the far end of the sitting area through a wide door that can be locked from the suite. Morning light falls across a padded rug, low shelves, a child-sized table, a small yellow chair, and bins labeled with pictures instead of words. He checks Misha’s books, counting picture books, story collections, and one badly illustrated book about construction machines.

“You made a list of toys too?” I ask.

“Yes.”

“You know they multiply when no one is looking.”

“I’ve noticed.”

Misha has already moved half the cars there and left the other half in his bedroom, which defeats Alexei’s attempt to keep an exact count. He follows the trail, retrieves a taxi from beneath the couch, and sets it in the correct bin. Misha watches from the doorway, waits until Alexei turns, then takes it out, carries it back to the couch, and pushes it underneath again.

Misha brings him the one-eyed bear. “Play.”

Alexei looks at his laptop, then at the bear.

“Five minutes,” he says.

Misha hands him a wooden spoon. “You cook.”

Five minutes becomes twenty. Alexei makes invisible soup, is told it needs jam, refuses, loses the argument, and feeds the bear from an empty block. When his phone rings, Misha covers it with both hands.

“No work.”

Alexei gently moves his fingers. “I have to go.”

“Go,” Misha says at once, taking the spoon back.

Alexei blinks.

Misha has already turned to the bear. “You burned soup.”

I hide my smile in the kitchen.

Alexei puts away his notebook, kisses two fingers, and presses them to the top of Misha’s head. “I’ll come back after work.”

Misha nods without looking up. “Bring strawberries.”

Alexei leaves with the expression of a man dismissed from his own government.

At noon, Dima’s men carry medical equipment into the office space. Locked cabinets hold sterile packs, medication, dressings, prefilled epinephrine syringes, and portable monitors.