“Already handled.”
“Alexei.”
She’s frustrated now, and beneath it lies real worry. That combination reaches places inside me I stopped expecting anyone to touch years ago.
I dry my hand slowly before meeting her eyes. “I told you I would handle it.”
“That isn't an answer, but I’ll let it go for now because of Ivy,” she whispers, lifting her chin.
She has no idea what that stubbornness could cost her around men like me. The way she lifts her chin and argues anyway pulls at every violent instinct I have because men in my world don’t protect softness like hers. They use it. They exploit it. And God help me, all I want to do is drag her farther from all of this before someone realizes how much she matters to me.
Ivy interrupts before I can respond.
“Can Papa help decorate cookies?”
I smile at my daughter, then roll up my sleeves.
“One cookie,” I tell her.
She cheers like I agreed to buy her a pony.
Maggie watches me move beside Ivy at the island while suspicion and emotional exhaustion battle across her face. I know exactly what she sees—the contradiction.
Less than an hour ago, I stood inside a freezing warehouse listening to a man choke on blood through broken teeth while Roman's men pinned him against concrete, demanding answers about the Italians. Now I stand beside my six-year-old daughter, spreading pink frosting across a crooked sugar cookie. Mostpeople would break under the strain of holding both realities at once.
I learned a long time ago that softness without violence gets people killed.
Ivy sticks out her tongue as she concentrates on sprinkling colored sugar onto her cookie. “Mine's prettier than yours.”
“Impossible,” I reply.
Maggie snorts before she can stop herself, and my eyes lift toward her. There it is again, that warmth she keeps pulling out of me without even trying, along with the ache of wanting a life that wasn’t meant for me.
She has flour across her cheek, and before I can think better of it, I reach toward her face. Maggie goes still the moment my hand touches her, and the entire kitchen seems to pause. My thumb brushes beneath her eye, wiping away the streak of flour while her breath stutters between us. Mine does too.
The bruise across my knuckles looks ugly against her skin, dark and violent beside her softness, and I wonder if she finally sees me clearly enough to hate what stands in front of her. But instead of pulling away, she leans into my touch just slightly, and that small movement destroys whatever restraint I still had left tonight.
I lower my hand before I do something reckless, like pull her into my arms right there in the middle of the kitchen.
“Ivy,” Maggie says after a moment, “you promised Winston and Daisy one cookie each, remember?”
“Winston already stole dough,” Ivy says, wrinkling her nose.
Irina gives Winston a long look. “Yes, but apparently theft was not enough for him tonight.”
Ivy giggles before hopping down from the stool with two cookies clutched carefully in her hands. Winston nearly knocks himself sideways trying to follow her while Daisy trots after them with much more dignity.
“Gentle,” Maggie warns through a laugh when Winston practically launches himself toward the cookie.
“He’s spoiled,” Ivy complains while lifting the treat higher above his nose.
“That dog gets it from you,” Irina mutters while starting to gather measuring cups from the island.
Ivy gasps loudly. “Rude.”
I watch Maggie laugh wholeheartedly, and the sound works through me in ways I no longer understand how to manage.
Ivy crouches beside the dogs near the sitting area off the kitchen while Winston devours his cookie in one bite, and Daisy takes hers delicately from Ivy’s hand. The little smile spreading across Ivy’s face afterward looks so open and happy that my chest squeezes unexpectedly.
