Page 87 of Baby for My Ex’s Dad

“I can hear it coming by your tone. Continue.”

“The kumicho, your sensei, was very polite when I called. He clearly had no intention of taking orders from an American woman he’d never met, especially in the middle of his afternoon. I could hear him preparing to hang up.” I pick at the dried blood on my sleeve. Stalling. Pathetic.

If I can lie to a scary Yakuza boss, I can tell Maxim the truth. “I told him I was your wife—the mother of the Vernigora heir asking personally—and that it would be a great favor if you considered it. I also promised him we would help him later when he needed it. Afterwards, he sent everyone he had.”

Maxim is quiet for a moment. “You told Sensei you were my wife.”

“He wouldn’t have moved otherwise. It was the only thing I had that he’d accept.” I glance at him sideways. “I’ll clear it up. I’ll tell him I overstated my job title. I’ll fix it.”

Maxim Vernigora smiles, slow and real. His teasing smile. “Is that your way of proposing to me, Dorothea?”

My heart skips a beat. Not for the first time today. “Maybe.”

His smile dips at the corner into a smirk. “Interesting.”

“Would that be so bad? You’d enjoy top-tier event planning forever.”

He huffs something that is almost a laugh, and for one second the entire car is warm. Or maybe it’s just me. He notes, “If that’s your event planning, bratty girl, I’ll let you plan all my wars.”

I snort a laugh at that. “Not the promotion I’m looking for.”

The humor drains out of him, and his hand tightens on mine. “Never help me like that again.”

This is the man who spent tonight watching everyone he loves get shot, or shot at, closing the door on one more person he can’t survive losing. “Max, I don’t⁠—”

“I’ve buried enough tonight. I cannot bury you, too. So never again. Please. Promise me.”

“I will truly try, Max. But I’m not going to swear something I might have to break.”

“Thea,” he begins, frustrated.

But I cut him off, because we promised honesty, and I intend to keep that promise. “As it turns out there’s nothing I won’t do for my family. No matter how fucking terrifying it is. So, I’ll try, and if you stay out of trouble, it’ll make my trying more effective.”

He looks at me for a long moment and presses his mouth to my knuckles. “If you’ll try, then I can try, too.”

We do not discuss Lev directly. But somewhere along the highway, Maxim quietly says to the window, “He was loyal. To the end. Anya confirmed it, and I believe her. She had no reason to lie about it. I let his name be sullied by doubt for an hour tonight, and I will not forgive myself for that.” His voice takes on a tone I’ve never heard before. “There will be a funeral he would have despised. Pomp and crowds and noise. A lot of noise.”

I’m unsure how all of this works, the loss of a man like that, and asking is a way for me to let Maxim say the name aloud one more time in a safe space. “Who comes to funerals for sovetniks?”

“He has no one. No wife, no children, only us. But everyone else will come. The other families. We pay our respects.” Maxim watches the guardrails strobe past. So, we lay him to rest in the same plot where the old ones are, and I speak the words. I’ll spend a lot of money on the reception after—he would have called it wasteful. But I will make sure the world remembers a man who spent forty years quietly dedicated to never seeking attention. It’s the least I can do, and the most I can do, and honestly, it won’t be enough.”

I lace my fingers in his. “It is a good start.”

He’s silent a moment, but smiles a little. “He would tell me to stop being sentimental and go home to you. So, I’ll do that too.”

There’s no fixing this. I know that. But I’d do anything to take the sadness off his face.

Galina immediately stands up as soon as we walk through the hospital doors. When she spots us, the tough woman softens completely. Tears stream down her stitched and swollen face, and she gently takes my face in her hands, then Maxim’s, speaking Russian that I don’t understand and don’t need translated.

“Pasha is awake,” she manages. “Talking and even complaining a bit. Klaus is doing well. The doctors are happy with his progress. He’s sleeping now, but he’s doing better. Both of them, Maxim—your boys will make it.”

Maxim closes his eyes for a moment just to breathe.

We go to Pasha first, since he’s awake. He’s propped up, pale but grinning at me, hooked up to fewer machines than he was. His smile falls when he clocks Maxim. “Pakhan⁠—”

“So,” Maxim says, dragging a chair to the bed. “You like men.”

Pasha’s monitor jumps. “Sir, I⁠—”