Page 163 of Mile High Ruin

Anton finally speaks. “Are you sure this is the right time?”

“Yes.”

“Security will have to be doubled.”

“Then double it.”

“We have people tracing Hale, the agency breach, the altered payment, and whatever Petrov is planning next.”

“I’m aware.”

Marek leans back. “And yet you want relatives coming here.”

“Only close family.”

Anton watches me. “Still a risk.”

“This is my house.”

That ends the discussion, or at least it should.

Marek looks at Iosef. “You heard him. Petrov may be trying to murder us, but there will be cake.”

Iosef lifts one shoulder. “If I survive another shooting, I would prefer chocolate.”

Anton rubs a hand over his face.

I ignore all of them.

The truth is simpler than I want it to be. Mila deserves one evening that is not organized around what happened to her, what might happen next, or who needs to be kept safe from whom.

Sloane saw that before I did.

That part bothers me.

Not because she was right. Because she noticed something about my family after less than a week that I have managed not to confront for years.

By afternoon, the house is already different. There are flowers in the dining room, staff moving quietly through the halls, and an air of festivity filling the foyer.

Sloane finds out before I have a chance to tell her. I see her near the staircase, standing beside Camille with an expression of complete disbelief. When she notices me, she leaves Camille and walks directly toward me.

“You did it.”

“I did what?”

She shakes her head. “This isn’t the time to pretend.”

“I have no idea what you mean.”

“Mila’s birthday.”

I look at her.

She smiles. The expression is so open that for a second I forget what we are discussing.

“You actually listened to me,” she says.

“I listen constantly.”