Page 176 of Cruel Demands

“I wear pants in the library,” Mikhail says.

“Usually,” I add.

His gaze slides toward me.

Nikita ignores us both and takes Nadia from his arms. Unlike Mikhail, she has no difficulty dressing her. Nadia protests loudly in Russian. Nikita answers in the same language, faster than I can follow.

“What did she say?” I ask.

“That your rules are oppressive,” Mikhail says.

“She said no such thing.”

He folds the newspaper. “She implied it.”

“I understand more Russian than I used to.”

“Then why did you ask?”

“Because you both speak faster when you’re plotting against me.”

Nikita finishes fastening Nadia’s pants and sets her on the floor. Our daughter runs in circles wildly, her hands out, catastrophic grenades with the pins out. A guard appears in the doorway at precisely the right moment and catches her beneath the arms. Nadia laughs. The guard does not. He looks toward Mikhail as though he has accidentally handled an explosive.

“You may put her down,” I say.

He does so carefully. Nadia pats his knee. “Spasibo.”

His expression softens by perhaps half a degree. Then she steals the radio from his belt and runs. He closes his eyes.

The house is still guarded. More than ever, probably. There are men at every entrance, cameras along the grounds, and enough emergency planning to survive a small invasion. Mikhail knows Nadia’s location at all times, keeps three pediatricians on call, and once attempted to have a playground professionally assessed for assassination risks.

I stopped that. Mostly.

But the house no longer feels like a prison. I know which stairs lead where now. I know which rooms belong to Nikita, which doors mean meetings, and which guards will pretend not to notice when I slip into the kitchen after midnight. I understand the language well enough to know when the staff are gossiping about us.

I understand the rules too. Some exist to keep us alive. Some exist because Mikhail cannot imagine love without preparing for catastrophe. Those are the ones we still fight about.

He has learned to ask more often. I have learned that accepting help does not always mean surrender. Neither lesson came naturally.

Nadia circles the table with the stolen radio. Someone speaks through it. She answers with complete confidence in a mixture of Russian, English, and words she invented herself.

“Give that back,” I tell her.

She runs faster. Mikhail watches her with the helpless awe that has never faded. When she was born, he held her like someone had placed the future directly into his hands. Then she opened her eyes and screamed at him. He fell in love immediately.

“Your daughter is committing theft,” I say.

“Our daughter.”

“Currently yours.”

Mikhail rises. He catches Nadia on her next pass and lifts her beneath one arm. She shrieks with laughter. He returns the radio to the guard. “My apologies.”

The man accepts it solemnly. “It is no problem, Pakhan.”

The title no longer surprises me. It still reminds me. Mikhail is no longer governor. He is, according to my father, a restaurateur. This is technically true.

He owns twelve restaurants now, along with a catering company, two event spaces, a food distribution business, and enough private dining rooms that I have learned not to ask what is being discussed behind most of their doors.