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“Most boys his age don’t remember their teacher’s name,” I tell Vera.

Vera rolls her eyes.

Misha's small hand closes around two of my fingers. He keeps hold of me while the guards clear the corridor and carry the wounded away.

I know how he sleeps, what he eats, and where he hides when he’s scared. I know the yellow car goes everywhere with him and that he copies the way I rub my jaw.

This isn’t the time to ask. I do it anyway.

I look at Vera over his head.

“When is his birthday?”

19

VERA

“When is his birthday?”

Alexei speaks over Misha’s head. Red emergency lights fill the west corridor while the guards drag a captured man toward the lower level.

“March seventeenth,” I say, holding Misha against my chest.

Alexei spreads his hand across the back of our son’s head. “What year?”

“You know the year.”

“I know what a laboratory told me.” His eyes stay on mine. “I want to hear you say it.”

“March 17, 2023,” I say. “At four twelve in the morning. Three years ago.”

Misha shifts between us and lifts his face. “I’m three.”

Alexei looks down at him, and something fierce enters his expression. “Yes,” he says, brushing damp hair from Misha’s forehead. “You are.”

A guard carries Oksana past on a stretcher. The cut above her eyebrow is small, but her face has lost all color, and her hands won’t stop shaking beneath the blanket. I step in front of the stretcher and touch her shoulder.

“Oksana. Look at me.”

It takes her a moment to raise her eyes. “Misha?”

“He’s safe.”

She closes her eyes and starts crying. Irina walks beside her with one hand on her arm. “She isn’t badly hurt. She’s in shock.”

I let them pass. Sergei stands near the broken suite entrance as another guard wraps a bandage around his ribs. Pieces of the broken moon-shaped nightlight cover the bedroom floor, and Misha’s second slipper still points toward the sitting area. I look around the suite one last time. Belov’s men had used our gates, cameras, and doors against us, then fought their way past the guards.

Misha stays in my arms with his face pressed against my shoulder. Alexei tucks his pistol into the back of his waistband and walks close enough to keep one hand on Misha’s back.

Dr. Yelena sends two more nurses into the west wing to help the injured, then waits for us in the medical bay. Inside, Yelena checks Alexei’s wounds and confirms that his stitches are still closed.

Once she finishes, four guards escort us to the Women’s Wing with Alexei and me walking side by side and Misha held in my arms.

Alexei looks at me. “The gala was June twenty-third?”

“Yes.”

“When did you find out?”