Page 13 of Cinderella and the Daddy
4
LUKA
Iwatch from my office window as a sound I'd forgotten existed drifts across the yard—genuine, unguarded laughter. Not mine. Leo's.
My pen stills against the contract I'm reviewing. When did I last hear him laugh like that? Not the polite giggles he offers his tutor or the nervous chuckles when I catch him sneaking cookies. This is different. This is joy.
He's chasing Cindy around the massive oak tree, Mac barking and weaving between their legs. She lets him catch her, spinning him in a circle that has him shrieking with delight. The sound hits me like a physical blow.
Three years. It's been three years since I pulled him out of that basement in Chechnya, and this is the first time he's sounded like what he is, a little boy. Not a survivor. Not a victim. Just a child playing in the sunshine.
Leo wasn't supposed to be mine.
His father had been my best and only friend. The guy I would give my life for.
Instead, he died for me. His only request was that I look after his son.
The boy’s mother, Anya, was a whore. Literally. No judgment on her or the way she made money. But Nikolai never loved her. That’s not what they had together. When she got pregnant and insisted the child was his. He accepted it. He never questioned paternity. Nik loved that boy more than anything in the world.
I checked up on Leo as much as I could. Then I got pulled away to handle an assignment and was gone for three months. Anya took advantage of my absence and proved how much she did not want her own child.
Three months in Prague. Three months trusting a woman whose maternal instincts were as fictional as her love for Nikolai had been.
The kindergarten teacher wouldn't look at me when I asked about Leo. The neighbors wouldn’t say what they’ve heard. I found him in Anya's basement, curled in a corner like a wounded animal, speaking only in whispers and flinching from shadows.
Thirty-six pounds. That's what my son weighed at six years old.
Anya's death was a mercy for him, not her. Some sins don't deserve absolution.
Didn’t even have to debate it. Then, I took Leo. Back then, he was Leonid. For months after I brought him home, he barely spoke. Nightmares every night. He'd flinch if I moved too quickly.
Now he's shrieking with laughter as Cindy pretends Mac has knocked her over. She’s rolling dramatically on the grass whilethe dog licks her face. Leo thinks this is the funniest thing he's ever seen.
She's been here a week. Five days since I fucked her on the hood of my car like some kind of animal. Five days since I discovered she was a virgin and felt something crack inside my chest that I thought was permanently sealed shut.
I should regret it. Taking her innocence like that, rough and desperate, in my garage. But watching her now, seeing how naturally she fits into this space I've built for Leo, I can't bring myself to feel anything but possessive satisfaction.
When I first brought Leo to meet her three days ago, I expected questions. Most people want to know the story. hose kid is he? Where did he come from? Why does a man like me have a six-year-old shadow? Cindy had taken one look at him hiding behind my legs and simply sat down on the floor.
"Hey there," she'd whispered. "I'm Cindy. Want to meet my dog?"
Just like that. No interrogation, no judgment. She let Leo approach Mac at his own pace, never pushing, never overwhelming him. Within an hour, they were best friends.
I felt something twist in my chest watching them together. Something that felt dangerously close to hope.
She moves through my world like she was born to it, and that should terrify me. But watching her teach Leo how to braid friendship bracelets, her grease-stained fingers gentle against his small ones. I find myself cataloging details I have no business noticing.
The way she tucks her hair behind her ear when she's concentrating. How her whole face transforms when she smiles at something he says. The unconscious grace in her movements, earned through years of honest work.
She's nothing like the manufactured perfection that usually decorates charity galas on my arm. No surgeon's enhancements or designer desperation. Cindy is real in a way I'd forgotten existed. Sharp edges and earned strength wrapped around a heart that's somehow survived intact despite everything life's thrown at her.
Beautifulisn't the right word. She's magnetic. Essential. Like discovering I've been holding my breath for years and she's the first clean air I've tasted.
Cindy is all sharp angles and earned muscle. Five-six with a wiry-lean build that speaks of years doing real work.
Her olive skin is dotted with faint freckles from long hours in the sun. There's a small scar on her left forearm. I noticed it when she was splayed out on my car.
Her hair is the color of milk chocolate mixed with natural honey streaks, thick, and usually pulled back in a ponytail. When it's loose, like it was that night in the garage, it falls past her shoulders in waves.
