"I know."
"And for God's sake, lead with the part where it's fake. Don't open with 'I'm marrying another Irish omega.'"
"That seems obvious. I think she’d kill me."
"You'd be surprised what stops being obvious when you're exhausted and guilty and standing in front of the woman you love."
I looked at him.
He looked back, unblinking. "What? I pay attention."
The airstrip came into view. The jet was waiting, lights on, engines already warming. Snow had started to accumulate on the wings.
I thought about Maeve on the velvet sofa, Mac against her chest.
I didn't know how to be a father. My own had left me standing in a corridor for six hours to teach me a lesson about power. The best I could do was the opposite of that, whatever that looked like.
It wasn't enough. It was what I had.
"One more thing," Ivan said as the SUV pulled up to the jet.
"What?"
"If Mary McCarthy says yes, and she might, she's just crazy enough, you're going to owe her. Not money. Not protection. Something real. You've spoken to her maybe twice. That's going to need to change."
"I’ve spoken to her more than that but you're right."
"I know I'm right. I'm always right. It's exhausting." He opened the door and cold blasted in, sharp and immediate. "Come on. Let's go home before your omega decides she prefers peace and quiet."
I stepped out into the snow. The jet engines were a low roar. Somewhere behind us, Moscow glittered with its particular brand of brutal indifference.
I had one month to get married.
11
Maeve
It had been justdays since Artem and Ivan left, and I stood in the doorway of the Highland Bean with my son tucked against my chest, watching Lena work the espresso machine like she'd been doing it for years instead of the short time I'd trained her.
Mac was a warm, compact weight in the sling. He had a frankly offensive amount of dark hair, a mouth built for fury, and the expression of a man who'd been handed substandard paperwork and was not about to let it slide. When he slept, he curled one fist under his chin like he was already preparing closing arguments.
I loved him with an intensity that made my ribs feel two sizes too small.
The café looked the same. That was the part that got me. Mismatched chairs. The chalkboard sign that leaned left no matter how many times I shoved a folded napkin under the leg. The second-hand books that smelled of paper.
But the pastry case was full. The counter gleamed. The morning rush had fogged the windows. And taped to the till was a handwritten sign:
NEW MANAGEMENT. BE NICE OR GET DECAF.
I hadn't written it. I was stupidly proud anyway.
"You're doing the right thing," Lena said without turning round. The steam wand hissed. "You can't stay here. Not with the baby. Not with—" She stopped.
She didn't saythe Russian mafia.
That was kind of her. Also pointless. Gregor was twelve feet away and could probably hear my capillaries bouncing against my skin. Just like they had when I told Lena we were flying out of the city today.
I looked toward the window. The black SUV sat at the curb like a bruise on an otherwise unremarkable Edinburgh street, wedged between a Fiat with one wing mirror and a Volvo plastered in parking tickets. Gregor stood beside it, doing his granite impression. His eyes tracked the pavement, the upper windows, the bus stop, the woman with the tartan shopping trolley, the student cyclist who veered into traffic with the survival instincts of a pudding.
