Page 170 of Merciless Daddy

“Not before we move it,” Yelena replied.

She sat with one knee tucked beneath her in the chair. Her hair had fallen from its braid. A coffee cup stood untouched beside her. Her expression was fierce and bright.

“The company can issue emergency retention grants,” she said. “Not payroll. Not directly. We structure them as temporary continuity support through the restaurant’s legal management company.”

Angela nodded. “Taxable.”

“Yes. Which means we gross up the payments.”

“That makes the fund more expensive.”

Yelena’s pale eyes lifted.

“Then it has to be more expensive.”

Angela’s mouth softened at one corner.

They built the structure together. Emergency grants to every displaced employee. Direct medical coverage to the guard’s hospital account. Supplier payments routed through a neutral Caruso restaurant so nobody lost their own work because Tonio’s kitchen had burned.

It was elegant. It was fast. It was exactly the kind of work Yelena had been trained to do while men around her pretended she was only decoration.

At two, I brought lunch into the library.

Soup. Bread. Fruit. Enough for them both.

Angela took a bowl without argument. Yelena barely looked up.

“Put mine there,” she said, pointing to the end of the table. “I’ll eat after this transfer clears.”

“You’ll eat now,” I said.

Her eyes flashed toward me.

“Daddy, I have thirty minutes before the London branch closes.”

“Then eat while the transfer processes.”

“I can’t risk mistyping an authorization.”

“You have two hands.”

She leaned back, annoyed.

“I already ate.”

The lie was clean. Too quick.

I looked at the untouched breakfast plate that had been removed from the table an hour earlier. I had watched her take two bites of toast. Nothing more.

Angela looked down at her keyboard.

Yelena held my gaze.

I could have called her out then. I could have made her eat in front of Angela and turned care into a contest she would feel compelled to win.

Instead, I set the bread beside her laptop.

“All right,” I said.