For one second, I cannot speak.
Not because I’m wounded. That comes later. Right now, I’m too angry to feel properly.
Then I look at him and smile.
It’s not a nice smile.
“You should count your blessings too,” I say.
His brows draw together. “What does that mean?”
“It means if I had married well and stayed obedient, you wouldn’t have Nikolai to parade around at your little mafia parties.”
Papa goes still.
Because now, we’re hurting each other honestly.
I step closer, just enough that from a distance we might still look like a father and daughter having a civil conversation.
“You want the boy,” I say softly. “You value the boy. You tolerate me because I produced the boy. Let’s not dress it up as generosity, Papa. It spoils the elegance.”
His nostrils flare slightly. “Go home,” he says.
I almost laugh. “With pleasure.”
I turn before he can change his mind and walk straight to Mama.
She sees my face and asks no questions. She only hands me Sofia, who curls into me without waking, and nods toward Nikolai.
He takes my free hand at once.
On our way out, Vika watches from across the room with the sort of lazy smile women wear when they believe a scene has gone badly for someone else.
I smile back.
Not because I’ve won.
But because I’m leaving.
The moment the car door shuts, the whole evening seems to collapse inward.
Outside, the house is still glowing behind us, all chandeliers and polite lies. Inside the car, it’s dim and overheated and close, with Sofia asleep across my lap and Nikolai leaning against my side, already half-gone himself. Mama sits opposite us, one gloved hand folded over the other, quiet for once.
Papa does not come out to see us off.
That’s almost a relief.
The driver pulls away from the curb. Streetlights smear across the windows. Sofia makes a small sleepy sound and presses her face deeper into my dress. I smooth her hair back automatically, but my mind is nowhere near the child in my arms.
It’s still with Roman.
Roman Sokolov. Roman Morozov.
Who is he really? And what is he hiding?
No one in that ballroom knew.
Not Papa. Not Vika. Not any of the old sharks circling the room with their daughters and grandsons and dead eyes. If they had known, the air would have changed. Men like that don’t hide shock well when bloodlines collide in front of them. They stare. They go still. They begin making calculations with their faces before they even mean to.
