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She stares at my raised arm and the knife in my hand as one eyebrow pops up her forehead. “Whoa there, cowgirl. I’m sorry—I knocked, I swear, but I didn’t wait for you to let me in. Please don’t stab me.”
I drop my hand and set the blade down on the closest flat surface, blushing furiously the whole time. “Sorry,” I mumble. “I was just… fooling around.”
“Yeah, I can see that. Because there’s no way that stance is going to be effective in a knife fight.”
I look down at my blade. “You know how to use this thing?”
“You met my father. Wouldn’t you keep a knife under your pillow at night if you lived under his roof?”
“I… I’m not sure if you’re joking or not,” I say, blinking.
She laughs and beckons for me to follow. “Come on. I came to ask if you wanted to watch a movie, but this feels like a better way to spend the day.”
She leads me to the opposite side of the penthouse, to the room I’ve spent the least amount of time in: the gym.
The left side of the space is decked out with huge, spotless mirrors, byzantine-looking exercise machines, and an absurd amount of weights in every increment. The right side is mostly just open, with a padded floor.
Bee walks onto the soft padding and gestures for me to join her there. “Firstly, it’s important that you think about that knife as an extension of yourself. It’s not a knife at all; it’s a part of your hand.”
“Uh, right. I am cyborg; hear me roar. Like that?”
“Not quite,” she says with a laugh, “but it’s a start. Now, picture me as some creepy dude coming at you.” Her father’s wrinkled face pops into my head instantly, which must be obvious, because she immediately follows up by asking, “Are you picturing my father?”
“Well…”
Bee grins roguishly. “Don’t worry. That’s exactly who I picture, too.”
“So which one is next?” I ask as the Star Wars theme fades out from the TV speakers.
“Are you kidding? We’re watching that again from the start. I’d do heinous things to Princess Leia in a gold bikini, I swear. Pity that her galaxy is so far, far away.”
“Gold bikini it is then.” Laughing, I grab a gummy worm from the bag she’s holding out to me. “Thanks for today, by the way. It was really fun.”
“Hey, it’s the least I can do. Not only are you putting up with my fiancé, but now, you’re forced to put up with my dad, too. I owe you.”
We’ve spent most of the day avoiding conversation about anything remotely personal. But that was in the morning when Bee still felt like a stranger. Right now, she’s feeling more like a friend.
“Speaking of your father,” I start cautiously, “may I ask why he thinks you’re pregnant?”
Bee empties the bag of gummies right into her mouth before flicking it onto the table. “We might need alcohol for this conversation. And by ‘we,’ I mean ‘me.’” She sighs. “But since I’m too lazy to get up, I guess a sugar high will have to do.” She turns to me and crosses her legs. “As I established in the morning, my father’s an asshole.”
“I… I did notice.”
“Don’t worry,” she reassures me with a pat on the knee. “This is not a case of ‘I can say it but you can’t.’ That’s the general consensus from any decent human being with eyes or ears who meets the man. In fact, being an asshole is probably the nicest thing you can say about him.” Combing her hair out of her face, she says, “He doesn’t believe in surrogacy, which is why Dmitri and I never told him that we were resorting to a fertility clinic to have a baby. As far as he knew, we were just trying the normal way. Or, as he would put it, the ‘right’ way.”
“Gross.”
She plays with her toes and nods forlornly. “Yup.”
“Do you mind if I ask why any of this is his business?”
“He’s got an empire of his own to pass down,” she explains patiently. “And he’s not about to hand it over to anyone who isn’t born of his direct bloodline. To his eternal shame, he doesn’t have a son. So a grandson is his next best bet.”
The word “heir” keeps echoing in my head. “I’m sorry, but which century do we live in? Everyone keeps talking about this baby as though he’s, like, the successor to a throne or something.”
Bee shifts uncomfortably. “Well, he kinda is. Dmitri’s and my baby was always meant to be the heir to both the Egorov Bratva and the Zanetti Mafia.”
My eyes pop. “M-mafia?”
