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Rayne’s voice is just over my shoulder. I feel the tingle of her presence on the back of my neck and it takes everything in me not to drag her outside and demand five years’ worth of overdue fucking answers.
As if she can read my mind, Rayne says, “I need to talk to Kirill for a few minutes. Can you find something to do in your room?”
“By myself?” Yuliana asks.
“How about you draw him a picture?” Rayne suggests. “A picture with all your favorite colors in it.”
For the first time, a genuine smile spreads across her face. Uncensored joy beams out of her like an actual rainbow. My heart is suddenly three sizes larger.
Yuliana scrambles under her bed, drags out a plastic bin of paper, markers, and stickers, and gets to work.
I could stand in the doorway and watch her all day. I have a lot of lost time to make up for.
Something I should discuss with the person responsible.
I spin around, grip Rayne’s elbow in a steel hold, and push her down the hallway in front of me.
“It was my idea to talk,” she hisses.
“It’s my idea to make sure you don’t try to get out of it.”
I push her through the living room towards the front door, and she digs in her heels. “We can talk in the kitchen.”
“No, we can’t. What I plan to say shouldn’t be overheard by young ears.”
The doorknob feels like an aluminum can. I could crush it in my palm if I tried. I make a mental note to replace the whole damn thing with a fucking vault door. Might put a moat with alligators around the property, too. Whatever it takes to keep the world away from the innocent little girl with the purple room.
I push Rayne onto the cement porch slab, and she stumbles down onto the sidewalk. “Relax, Kirill. You’re overreacting.”
“I’m not sure there is a standard reaction for when you find out you have a secret five-year-old daughter.” My voice rises with every word so I’m bellowing by the end. The control I’ve kept on my rage is quickly slipping away. “This is the part where you start fucking explaining yourself, Rayne.”
“What makes you think she’s yours? I never said that.”
Her cheeks are splotched pink, her blue eyes wide. “Guilty” might as well be stamped in ink on her forehead.
“That’s the problem. You never said a goddamn thing.”
“She isn’t yours!”
“Don’t lie to me,” I growl. “Don’t fucking lie to me.”
“I didn’t. Well, I did. I lied about having a daughter,” she amends. “I didn’t tell you I had a kid because I didn’t know how you’d react. I was scared, but… yeah, I have a child. She’s mine.”
“No kidding. But if you’re really going to look me in my eyes and tell me that little girl doesn’t belong to me, then—”
“Shebelongsto me,” she corrects viciously. “You may have money to buy whatever you want, but you don’t own her. You just met her fifteen minutes ago.”
“Whose fault is that?”
“She isn’t yours!” Rayne screams again.
We’re no doubt drawing the attention of the neighbors. Assuming they aren’t too drugged out to notice. Or maybe screaming fights like this are common around here. I wouldn’t be surprised.
“Fine. Tell me the story.”
She frowns. “What story?”
“That little girl is five years old, Rayne. I can do the math; can you? How many men were you fucking while we were together?”
