Page 103 of Santa Daddy
He was looking for something else.
“What else did he say to you?” he asked.
His voice was calm in that way that made my stomach knot. The Russian slipped a little stronger around the consonants.
“Not much,” I said. I was on my knees with a dish towel, wiping at a stubborn speck of wine by the baseboard like it mattered. “Mostly bullshit. He likes the sound of his own voice.”
“He said door opened for him.” Konstantin’s gaze stayed on me. “That cameras go dark when they want. ‘They’ being council.”
“They overrode the lock,” I said. “Panel even announced it. I watched the light change.”
He went even stiller at that. “They used my wife to test me,” he said after a heartbeat. “They wanted to see if I would put bullet in my own blood.”
Put more simply: they’d opened the door and turned off the witness so they could see what their pet Pakhan-to-be would do with a cornered woman and a cousin with his hands on her.
“They also wanted to see what I’d do,” I said quietly. “How I’d react. What I’d be willing to survive.”
His mouth tightened. “You did well,” he said. “You hurt him.”
Small trophy. Bloody, expensive Bordeaux-shaped.
I sat back on my heels, towel dangling from my fingers. “He said you told them I was untouchable,” I said. “Nice word for it.”
Something flickered behind his eyes. Anger, yes. Guilt, maybe. It looked a lot like the moment in the hallway after the photo, when he’d told me I breathed because he allowed it.
“You are safer than you were in that lot,” he said quietly. “You are not safe from them. That is different.”
I exhaled, a thin, humorless sound. “Right. Safer. Just not safe.”
I pushed to my feet, tossed the towel in the sink, and turned to find him leaning in the doorway, blocking most of the kitchen with his body.
Up close, he looked worse than the room.
Small cuts on his cheek. Bruise building along his jaw. Bandages on both hands. Snow-damp hair pushed back like he’d run bloody fingers through it more than once.
“You’ve been different,” he said. “Since before today. Distant. Secretive.”
My heart thumped against my ribs.
Of course I’d been different.
Try carrying a mob boss’s baby while his family used you as a lab rat and see how well you did at light conversation.
“I just got choked and groped in my own kitchen by your cousin while your bosses watched to see if you’d snap,” I said, voice flat. “Trust isn’t really on the menu.”
“That is part,” he said. “Not all.”
He pushed off the frame and came closer. The faint, clean spice of his cologne rode under the sharper scents of cleaner and old wine.
“The bag in lobby,” he went on. “The way you look at me like you are planning escape. The way you almost ran instead of talking to me.” His eyes narrowed. “You are hiding something, Dani.”
Everything.
The test in the trash. The calendar math. The way my body had already started to feel not entirely like mine.
My chest felt too tight. I wanted to lift my hand to my stomach; I made myself curl it into a fist instead.
“I’m hiding that I hate your family,” I said. “I’m hiding that your cousin’s fingers were just on my throat. That should be enough.”
