I exhale hard and look away before I do something stupid.
This is exactly why I shouldn’t say anything. Because Vika takes every warning as competition, every concern as proof that she’s on the right track.
But I can’t let it go. Because she doesn’t know.
And because if Roman decides to stop being patient with this family, Vika is exactly the kind of fool who will think she can flirt her way through the first signs of danger.
I look back at her.
“You have no idea who he is,” I say.
That gets her attention. Only slightly, but enough. The smugness in her face shifts. “What exactly does that mean?”
“It means He isn’t some rich man you can play with because you’re bored.”
Her eyes narrow. “Play with?”
“Yes.”
I should shut up.
Instead, I hear myself say, “You think dangerous men are exciting because they wear good suits and know how to look at women. You have no understanding of real danger.”
The room goes very still.
Vika’s expression changes. “So you do know him.”
Oh shit.It’s a trap.
I walked into it the second I opened my mouth.
I say nothing. That silence is enough.
Her smile comes back slowly, but now there’s something nastier in it. “Oh,” she says. “Oh, this is better than I thought.”
“Don’t flatter yourself.”
“I’m not.” She comes another step closer. “I’m admiring you.”
I laugh once, without humor. “That’s a first.”
“No, really.” She tilts her head, watching me with open curiosity now. “You’ve been strange since last night. Then today at lunch...”
She lets the sentence hang.
I hate how much she’s enjoying this.
“You should be careful,” I say again, and this time my voice is lower, flatter, more serious than I intended. “I’m not joking, Vika.”
Something in that reaches her. Not enough to make her listen, but enough to make her stop smiling quite so easily.
Then she says, “Why?”
Just that.Why?
And for one second, I think about telling her. Not everything. Never that. But enough to scare her off. Enough to make her understand that Roman is tied to things she does not want touching her life.
But then Lev rises between us without even being named. Moscow. The engagement. His death. The Morozovs. All of it crouching just beneath the floorboards of this house.
