Page 70 of Corruption

The only option here is to maintain the lie on both sides, and let Kiya marry Vaughn. The only way to keep her safe and keep her at all, is to give her away.

“What?” Kiya asks.

I blink out my stupor and shake my head. “It’s nothing, Pretty Girl. Just… daydreaming.”

Kiya rolls her eyes, assuming—not all the way incorrectly—exactly what I’m daydreaming about.

Oh, to be stuck between a rock and a hard place.

27

Alik

Many days while I work, I pull up the camera feeds of our home to watch Kiya. It’s very entertaining to watch her flit around from room to room looking for something to occupy her time. Most times she draws or bakes or even goes out into the garden. But today, a look at security footage shows that not even locked doors are stopping Kiya in our house now. The only room in the house she hasn’t been in is the locked music room where Nadia and I sometimes play our instruments together. But it seems like she’s decided because we’ve had sex, nothing in the house is private from her.

She picks the bolted lock on the French doors with a hairpin and a very thin screwdriver before letting herself in the room, and then I lose sight of her because there are no cameras in that room.

I have work to do. I shouldn’t let myself be bothered. There’s nothing in there to actually hide from Kiya or anyone, and nothing that’s a danger to Kiya. But like all things with her, I can’t help myself.

It seems neither can Nadia because as I’m entering the hall where the music room is, I catch Nadia about to enter also.

“Don’t you have more important work to attend to than watching Kitten on the camera feed all day?” I ask.

Nadia simply turns to me and asks knowingly, “Don’t you?”

I follow her into the room, finding Kiya at the wall where Nadia hangs her violin and bow, running her fingers up and down the strings of the instrument while looking at the pictures hung on the walls above it.

“A locked door means that you’re not welcome,” I say.

A few weeks ago, Kiya would have jumped, spun around, and profusely apologized. Today, she simply shrugs and, while still looking at the pictures, says, “Well, when a lock is that easy for me to pick, it’s practically an invitation. Besides, I figure if you didn’t want me in here, you would have explicitly told me.”

“I would have thought a lock was explicit enough,” I say, coming up behind her and following her gaze to the picture she’s looking at.

It’s Vaughn, Nadia, and I when they were just sixteen (Nadia was almost seventeen) and I was twenty. Probably a year or a little more before Isaak was born. We were inseparable back then. Vaughn was nursing an attraction to Nadia, Nadia was oblivious, and I was encouraging my brother to say something to her instead of wasting his time on irresponsible hookups that would get him in trouble. I was proven right when one of those encounters led to Isaak.

How times change.

“Who’s that young guy between you and Vaughn in this photo, Alik? He looks familiar,” Kiya says.

I don’t say anything, and wait for Nadia to answer. Or not answer. It’s her business.

“That’s not a guy or a he,” Nadia replies calmly. “That’s me before I finished fully transitioning. This was the last time I presented myself that way before I got my last surgery and never looked back.”

Kiya says nothing for a while. I can practically sense Nadia waiting for her response with bated breath.

Finally, Kiya says, “Oh. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have assumed.”

This is the only time she’s allowed to apologize for anything and I won’t tell her not to.

“You didn’t know,” Nadia says.

“Still. Sorry.” Then, “I didn’t know theBratvawas so inclusive and accepting.”

“Some of the other families aren’t,” Nadia answers.

“Most of them aren’t,” I mutter.

“But I was lucky to have four older brothers and a father who thought it was much less humiliating for him to accept a daughter than the embarrassment of failing to make his only daughter into a son when she was the last child and didn’t matter anyway.”

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