Page 7 of Runaway Queen

Molly sighed. “He’s building a goddamn castle in the woods, complete with a crocodile-filled moat.” Her tone told me this was a contentious subject.

I looked out the window, watching the changing landscape as we headed into the city. It all seemed so mundane. Everything had continued on just as before, while I’d been outside of the world for seven whole years. “Of course he is. Kirill can’t help but be extra as fuck.”

Molly tutted. “He’s lost his mind.”

“Why? Everypakhanneeds a retirement plan. I like it. Kirill and Mallory, the great star-crossed lovers, growing old, safe and sound in their snowy Russian castle. You’ll keep the east wing for me, of course, so I can be the monster who lives in the shadows up there and scares the kids. You didn’t bring them?”

“No. They’re in school.”

“School?” I sucked a breath through my teeth.I missed it all. Seven years. An entire childhood. “For the record, I also think the PTA at Kira’s new school sounds like a satanic cult.”

Molly smiled. “So, you got my letters? I guess my replies got lost in the mail.”

“You didn’t want to hear from me. You’re the kind of fucked-up, pathetic bleeding heart who would have worried for me, and there wasn’t any point. I enjoyed reading them, though, for what it’s worth. I liked not being forgotten.”

Molly laughed, a sound like silver bells. “Like anyone could forget the great Nikolai Chernov.”

I clenched my hand in my lap as Sofia’s name seemed to float in the air between us.

“Does Kirill know you’re here?”

Molly slid a slideways glance at me. “What do you think?”

“I think he has no intention of letting me anywhere near his family until he can be sure about my mental state. He’s not an idiot.”

“And how is your mental state? You look well. Terrifying but healthy.” Molly looked me up and down.

“And you’re still a terrible judge of character, clearly.”

Molly turned to me, one eyebrow cocked. “So, you’re not well?”

I watched the world pass by outside the car. “Isn’t that what my brother warned you? Isn’t that why you didn’t bring the kids?”

Molly was quiet for a long moment before rallying. “Kira wouldn’t be scared of you anyway. She has a way with monsters.”

“She gets that from her mother,” I noted. “And Ruslan?”

“He’s protective, but he’ll love you. You’re his uncle, and he’s heard all about your escapades.”

“Don’t scare the kid.”

Molly was quiet for a long moment. “If you’re going to haunt the east wing, you need to be alive.”

She finally broke a chuckle from me. “Oh, princess. My ghost will haunt your fortress of Russian solitude just fine. Don’t worry about me. Nothing good ever happens to people who worry about me. It’s safer not to risk it.”

* * *

“Okay,I changed my mind. I didn’t want to come. This is a total downer,” Bran complained, a few hours later, when we pulled up at the ornate gates of Silent Grove, a cemetery in New Jersey.

He’d called me just as Molly and Ronan had left me at some faceless hotel downtown. I’d only been in Manhattan a few hours and was already itching to leave. I’d been waiting seven long years for this moment, and I couldn’t fucking wait one more second.

“Like you had anything better to do.”

It was a dry fall day. Perfect weather really. I left Bran at the car and pulled my cap low over my face, grabbed the stuff I needed from the trunk, and headed through the marked graves in the general direction of the De Sanctis family plots. The graveyard was well tended and full of fresh flowers. Well, it seemed that way until I reached mylastochka’sgrave. It was bare of adornment. Even in death, Antonio’s daughter was an afterthought.

I kneeled on the wet grass, setting aside my supplies and laying a bouquet of lilies against the green grass that covered the woman I loved. I might have always been fucked up, but that I loved Sofia couldn’t be denied. She was my ghost, haunting my days, always just tantalizingly out of reach. The inscription on the headstone made me itch to visit Antonio De Sanctis this second and even our debts.

Here lies Sofia Leonora De Sanctis,

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