Page 111

“He isn’t proving strength,” I say. “He’s proving he can attack a doctor and a child.”

“To us,” Elena replies. “To frightened captains, he’s proving the old methods still work.”

Cara picks up another cookie. “Frightened men don’t need much convincing.”

I look through the courtyard glass at Misha, who is lining cars along the sitting-room rug while Oksana reads nearby.

“Hiding him kept those men from knowing his name,” I say.

“Yes,” Elena says.

“And now the secret makes him more valuable.”

“It makes the rumor louder,” she says. “It doesn’t make your decision foolish.”

Cara leans back in her chair. “You made the safest choice you could see. Now you have more choices, and none of them are clean.”

After they leave, the day passes without gunfire, alarms, or another body at the gate.

That feels suspicious enough to keep me on edge.

At night, tiny colored bulbs glow along the courtyard walls. Their reflections shine across wet leaves and glazed pots. Oksana has made the enclosed space welcoming with flowers in a glass jar and Misha’s drawings tucked beneath the edge of the table.

I check the locked door again.

Inside Misha’s room, Oksana reads the bear story while he interrupts every page. His voice reaches me through the open courtyard door.

“The cave comes first,” he says.

“I know,” Oksana replies.

“Papa missed it.”

“I won’t.”

I sit on the outdoor sofa and listen to his laugh.

I spent three years making sure no one knew whose blood he carried. It kept him outside Alexei’s wars, but it also left me alone with every choice. Now the secret is out, and men I have never met are deciding what his name means.

I can’t hide the truth again.

I pace twice before forcing myself to stop. Surgery taught me to work with what’s on the table, even when the damage is worse than the scan promised.

The secure entrance door opens behind me.

Alexei crosses the sitting area, speaks briefly to Oksana, then steps into the courtyard. He has removed his jacket, and his sleeves are pushed to his forearms.

“Misha is still awake,” I say.

“I heard.”

“He waited for the strawberries.”

Alexei holds up a paper bag. Light from the tiny bulbs crosses his face, catching in his pale gray eyes and tracing the clean line of his cheek and mouth. He crosses to the kitchen, sets the paper bag beside the fruit bowl, then comes back and stops in front of me. “May I have one hour with him?”

The answer rises at once. No.

I look toward the sitting room. Two guards stand outside the suite, Oksana remains inside, and cameras cover the courtyard and playroom. Alexei waits without adding pressure.