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“Mama makes her own ice cream sometimes,” Isabella says as she slurps her vanilla milkshake through a straw.
I’d bought her a bowl and then quickly realized she couldn’t feed herself, so I asked the owner to blend it up for us.
“That would make it a milkshake,” he said pedantically. “And those cost extra.”
I narrowed my eyes at the scrawny son of a bitch. “She’s a little girl in a wheelchair. Blend up the goddamn ice cream.”
He puffed out his chest and met my gaze like a man with a death wish. “Sure. As soon as you pay the difference.”
The only reason I didn’t shove the man’s hand in a blender was for Isabella’s sake. In the end, the man agreed to blend up her ice cream in exchange for me not following through on my whispered threat to feed him his own testicles in a waffle cone.
Now, all is well. Or as well as it can be. We're sitting at a table by the front window, watching people walk down the sidewalk just outside. The owner is keeping a close eye on us, but he's too scared to come over and say anything.
Smart on his part. I won't restrain myself a second time. He was lucky to get one “get out jail free” card.
“We have an ice cream machine,” Isabella continues. “Mama lets me pour in the ingredients. Then we make lots of ice and it goes around and around until it comes out all creamy.”
“That sounds, uh… fun. Do you help your mom cook a lot?”
Isabella shrugs one shoulder. “Sometimes, I get to use a sandwich knife to cut soft things. Like bread. And strawberries. Mama says it's good to learn to do things by myself. So I can be…" she frowns, thinking about the word. "Independent."
"Sounds about right," I mutter. A little louder, I add, "Or you can get really rich and pay someone to cook for you. That's what Maria and Vlad do in the kitchen. They've been making my food for years and years."
"You can cook, too, I bet. Or you can try," she says in complete earnestness. "Mama always lets me try different things. But some people don't. They think I can't do it. Because of my wheelchair and stuff."
I frown as a blaze of anger flares up in my chest.
No, not anger—protectiveness.
And as it burns, I feel a strange moment of simpatico with Emery. This is what she feels all hours of the day. This raging bonfire directed at anyone who would ever wish ill upon her daughter.
My frown deepens.
"That is… not nice," I say. It takes maximal effort to keep my word choice G-rated. Beneath the table, my hand knots into a fist.
She nods, but smiles. "Yeah, but it's just because they don't know I use the butter knife by myself sometimes. Or that I have a cutting board just for me. It says ‘Izzy’ on it.”
“Is that your nickname?” I ask.
“It was,” she says. “But not anymore. Now I’m bigger, so my name is bigger, too.”
“Isabella is a good name. I like it.”
She grins, an ice cream mustache spreading across her lip. I don’t know how it’s possible to get an ice cream mustache with a straw, but if there’s a way to be messy, kids will find it. Yasha was the same way. He didn’t make it through a meal without spilling until he was twelve years old.
“Adrik is… weird,” she says.
“You think my name is weird?”
“Kind of,” she giggles.
I narrow my eyes at her and growl low in my chest. Isabella just giggles harder.
For everything she’s been through, she’s a happy little girl. Emery has done a good job raising her.
A better job than I did looking out for Yasha when he was younger.
The thought threatens to turn my surprisingly good mood sour, so I dismiss it and listen to Isabella tell me every thought she has in an unbroken fifteen-minute monologue.
I’m long done with my ice cream and waiting on Isabella to finish hers when my phone rings. It’s Stefan.
“Everything fine with…” I glance at Isabella and finish, “the project?”
“The usual,” he says. “She’s throwing a fit. But this isn’t about Emery.”
I turn away. “What’s it about, then?”
“I looked into Malcolm like you asked. I know you saw that orchid or whatever—”
“The ghost orchid.”
He sighs. “Right. I looked into that, but it was a dead end. Then I scoured for any connection between Malcolm and the Volandris.”
“And?” I press.
“They cater his parties,” Stefan says.
I grimace. “Everyone in this fucking town uses Volandri Catering.”
Isabella gasps. “Don’t use that word!”
“Blyat’,” I mutter. “Forget I said it.”
“What?” Stefan asks.
“Not you. I was talking to—It doesn’t matter. Are you sure there’s nothing else?”
“Positive,” he says. “As far as I could find, Malcolm is clean. It doesn’t mean he is, obviously, but he doesn’t have a trail.”
“There’s always a trail. We just have to find it.”
“Let me know what you need,” Stefan says. “But I’ll keep my ear to the ground.”
No sooner have I hung up with Stefan and turned back to Isabella than my phone rings again. I answer it.
“What?”
“Mr. Tasarov,” a timid voice says. “It’s Daniil from—”
“Security, I know,” I snap. “What is it?”
“There’s someone at the gate for you, but nothing on your schedule.”
I don’t have any meetings today. I figured it would be best not to bring any more people than necessary to the house while Emery is still pitching a fit.
“Send them away.”
“I tried,” Daniil says. “But it’s a woman and she’s insisting she has a meeting with you. Something about a dog?”
“Ah, shit.”
Isabella gasps again. “That’s another bad word.”
I cup the phone and say to her, “Don’t repeat that, either.”
“Don’t repeat what?” Daniil asks.
“I wasn’t talking to you,” I sigh. Then, suddenly, it comes to me. “Is the woman’s name Diane?”
The breeder interview.
With all of the bullshit surrounding the visit to the breeder that day and the police searching my car in the parking lot, I completely forgot about the home visit. Diane rattled off some dates that worked for her and Emery picked one, but it left my mind almost immediately.
Now, Emery is locked away in her bedroom, and the last two times I’ve seen her, she’s attacked me.
It doesn’t exactly scream “functional family ready for the responsibility of raising a dog.”
Maybe it’s not Diane. Just some old flame stopping by in hopes of a good time. Most women I fuck know better than to drop in on me unannounced, but it wouldn’t be the first time one of them has gone too far.
“Yeah, it’s Diane,” Daniil confirms a moment later. “She says she has a—”
“Goddammit. Let her in the compound, but not inside the house,” I order. “I’ll be there soon. Let her in the front door when I arrive.”
“Got it, boss,” he says.
I shove my phone in my pocket and stand up. “We’re taking that shake to go. I have to get back to the house.”
“In the car?” Isabella’s eyes glimmer. “Mama never lets me take food for the drive.”
I grab her shake and direct her to the door. “Then today is your lucky day, kid.”
But it might not be mine.
Because if Emery fucks this up, all hell is about to break loose.
