Page 195 of Merciless Daddy

He sighed. “Seriously?”

“Hands.”

He held them up. A small nick marked one thumb.

Yelena’s eyes sharpened.

“What happened?”

“A potato fought back.”

Tonio leaned into frame. “He lost. To be fair, it was one of the more deadly potatoes I’ve seen. Real knobbly.”

Kiryl made a rude gesture at him with his uninjured hand.

Yelena blinked. Then she laughed. Not carefully. Not as a defense. The sound escaped her and stayed.

“Your face,” she said. “You’re burned.”

“Sunburned. Because your friend made me walk the property.”

“My friend?”

“He made me walk the property,” Kiryl repeated.

“Security assessment,” Tonio said. “Very important work. Plus, Kirya is a little pale. Needs some Vitamin D, in my professional medical opinion.”

“Bullshit,” Kirly said. “You just wanted me to carry fence posts around. My wellbeing was far from your mind.”

“You made him carry fence posts?” I snorted. I couldn’t help myself.

“They were small fence posts,” Tonio said with a grin. “Insignifcant.”

Pietro joined the call from Chicago. He sat in the carriage house kitchen with a coffee in one hand and Angela beside him, still wrapped in a cardigan.

“I saw the photos,” Pietro said. “The fence posts were not small.”

Tonio pointed at the screen. “Traitor.”

Angela leaned into view. “Kiryl, did you get breakfast before forced labor?”

“Yes. Eggs. Sausage. Toast. Some slop they call cowboy beans. Tonio keeps trying to feed me every forty minutes.”

“You are thin and you are pale and I’m going to make you healthy,” Tonio said.

“I am not too thin.”

“You are a human pencil.”

Kiryl looked offended. Yelena laughed again.

I watched her. The way she looked at her brother. The way worry still lived in her face, but no longer owned every inch of it.

“Are you happy there?” she asked him.

The kitchen quieted. Kiryl looked at her.

Not are you safe.