“Yes.”
“You keep agreeing with me.”
“That should tell you something.”
“What?”
“That I’m done pretending it matters.”
The words go through me before I can brace for them.
“You think because we’re alone in one of your safe apartments, you can say whatever you want?”
His eyes drop to my mouth. “No.”
I look away. I need to think straight, and he’s making that very hard right now. But I’d already decided that he had to know the truth. I couldn’t stop running anymore. That ends tonight.
I have spent five years being the only person carrying this truth, and tonight, all at once, I can’t bear the weight of it anymore.
Roman waits. He always did know when silence would make me speak.
I set the glass down very carefully because my hand is starting to shake. “The children,” I say, and then stop.
His face changes a little, though he says nothing.
My mouth is dry.
“What about them?” he asks.
I look at him and think,This is the moment. After this, nothing is the same. After this, I don’t get to pretend I was only ever protecting them from some vague danger with no face and no name.
I force the words out. “They’re yours.”
Roman doesn’t move.
For a second the whole apartment goes silent.
Roman looks at me the way men look at a wound they didn’t know they had until someone put a knife through the skin and showed it to them.
“What did you say?”
My throat tightens, but I make myself hold his gaze. “The twins are yours.”
He goes absolutely still.
It should frighten me more than it does. The anger I could have handled. Shouting, questions, accusation. This stillness is worse because I don’t know what’s inside it yet.
I see the math hit him. Moscow. The plane. The hotel. The weeks after. All the ways he could have counted this himself if he had known where to start.
He drags a hand over his mouth. “And you never told me.”
“I told you before,” I say. “I didn’t want your shadow anywhere near them.”
His jaw tightens. “Then what changed now?”
“I think I was being unfair to you,” I say. “I had decided before the shooting happened, and that just made my decision firm. I couldn’t stop running from my past anymore, maybe I never could.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asks softly while he closes the distance between us.
