Page 123 of Single Mom's Daddies
I turn the plaque over in my hands. The lettering is neat, steady. But the filigree…my breath stalls. I’ve seen this before. I follow her into the kitchen, the plaque still in my hands. “You painted this?”
She opens a tin of tea. “Of course.”
I set the plaque on the counter with slow, careful hands and pull out my phone to text:I’m calling a meeting. Office. Everyone. Including Saffron.
The office smells like the faint ghost of gunpowder. The big windows are cracked for fresh air, but the tension inside still feels heavier than the smoke from yesterday’s fight.
Roman stands near the bookshelf, arms folded. Victor’s by the bar cart, pouring black coffee for everyone. When Saffron walked in, I passed her the plaque for Ivy. Now, she sits in one of the leather armchairs. She’s got Ivy’s plaque on her lap, running her fingers along the paint as if trying to decipher the Cyrillic.
Aunt Olenna strolls in last. She doesn’t hurry. She never does. She settles into the seat by the fireplace like she’s just here for a family update and a warm drink—not the center of what I’m about to blow wide open.
I stand. “I know who Svet is.”
The room stills. Olenna just smirks.
“Aunt Olenna, care to tell them, or do you want me to?”
Nobody moves. Her smirk grows. “Please share what you think you know.”
I look her dead in the eye. “You’re Svet.”
Victor laughs, but it dies when he sees I’m serious. Then Roman says slowly, “You’re sure?”
I hold up the plaque. “The blue and gold filigree. It’s not just similar. It’s exact. Same curl in the bottom corners. Same brushwork. It’s her hand.”
Olenna doesn’t deny it. She sips her tea instead.
Roman looks at her. “This is your work.” It almost sounds like a question.
She smiles faintly. “Took you long enough to figure it out.”
Victor blinks. “Wait—what?”
“I said,” she replies crisply, “I am Svet.”
Everyone stares. Even Saffron.
Olenna leans back and crosses her legs, perfectly composed. “It was an alias I used a long time ago. Back when I was just a girl in Russia. Before I married your uncle. Svetlana—light. It was the name I used to sell small paintings at the street market. Before my life became…less artistic.”
“You’ve been the one sending us the paintings?” Roman asks, stunned. For once, I can’t tell if he’s mad.
She nods. “After Nadia died, and you three said you wanted to run legitimate operations—no more blood, just money clean as daylight—I remembered Svet. I thought, why not? I still had the skill. And I wanted to see what the market would do with it.”
Victor frowns. “But the provenance?”
“My cousin in Zelenograd,” she says, waving a hand. “I ship the canvases to her. She ships them back. Care packages, officially. Just enough paperwork to make them feel foreign.”
“And the sales?” I ask.
“You sold the first one as a favor. I didn’t tell you it was mine. I wanted to see if it had value.”
I feel the bottom drop out of my stomach. “It sold for forty grand.”
“Which was thirty-nine more than I expected,” she says, smiling.
Victor runs a hand through his hair. “So we built the backbone of our financial empire…on you.”
“You built it on Svet,” she corrects. “I simply gave her a brush again.”
