“I’ll kill him,” Vadim says, but his tone is far too serious. He means it.
Thinking quickly, I approach him and lace my fingers through his hair, planting my lips against his collar. “No, you won’t.” I smooth my hands down his front and finger the very end of his tie. “You’re going to help me make lunch for Magda. Then you’re going to have Ena secure the property, hmm? And later, you will think of a humane way to confront your brother.”
He stiffens. Cautiously, I feel his fingers sink through my hair as his arm encircles my waist, holding me close.
“Oui—yes,” he says, his accent thick. I file away another quirk of his for later reflection—he switches to French when overwhelmed, or protective, which gives a greater semblance to the words he murmured to me the other night. Tell me you’ll stay with me. That I can give you what you need, oui?
Overwhelmed, I draw back and turn my attention to the freezer. “Nuggets, or broccoli and cheese shaped like dinosaurs? Which do you think she’d like?”
He makes a low sound in his throat as he inspects his options. “I never was a fan of food crafted to look like other forms of food,” he says skeptically.
“Nuggets, it is!” I hand him the container to heat up while I head for the stairs, skirting Ena, who found a set of tools from somewhere and is working on the door with vigor.
My heart skips as I approach Magda’s room though I’m not sure why. Perhaps because I’m breaking another one of my impromptu rules—stay out of this. Let Vadim get to know his daughter in peace, no matter how awkward a process it might turn out to be.
So much for that.
“Magda?” I gather the nerve to knock on her door and gingerly push it open.
A sweet, soft melody drifts out. Halting. A song? The foreign words are uttered with meticulous care. French? It has to be. Every syllable is pronounced in an accent fitting enough to match Vadim’s—but overly careful as if parroted rather than fluent mastery of the language. Lost in concentration, she’s standing on the window seat, her hands braced against the window while her bear sits propped against her feet. She sings mindlessly while scanning the horizon with such an inquisitive expression I stop short.
She goes rigid and whips around to face me, her eyes narrowing. The song dies mid-phrase, and she crosses her arms once more.
“Can I help you?” she asks, her tone shrill but polite.
“Are you settling in okay?” I warily step inside the room. Her suitcase is open, various items strewn across the bed. A few pieces of clothing, a worn looking leather-bound book, and another stuffed animal, though one lacking the signs of surgery that It sports. Beside the lot is a small pink carrying case that looks as though it’s seen better days.
The moment my eyes settle on it, Magda jumps from the window seat and crosses to the bed. Meeting my gaze, she deliberately grabs her belongings and shoves them back into the suitcase, slamming it shut.
“I’m fine,” she says. “Thanks.”
“Okay.” I force a smile and turn for the door. “We’ll be just downstairs, and we made lunch—”
“I’m not a baby, you know.” Gone is the façade of politeness. Her tone is so cutting that I can only think of one comparison fitting enough to match the icy hostility—the insistence of a certain billionaire that I wasn’t his type, for instance.
I turn to face her, sensing my eyebrow raise. “I didn’t mean to imply that you were.”
“Who are you anyway?” She appraises me with a haughty flick of her chin, her arms crossed. “You’re not married to him. Even if you do have a ring on.” She nods to my left hand, and I clench said fingers into a fist, caught.
My cheeks flame, but something prevents me from backing down. Instead, I advance a step toward her, keeping my tone level. “And if I’m not?”
She bites her lower lip and seems to mull it over. Then she smiles, and it’s such a beautiful match to Vadim’s. The one he wears when his aim is cruel. “Did you read my file?” she asks sweetly, batting her eyelashes. “My last family, the Robinsons, are moving to the other side of the country, just to get away from me.” Her smile grows wider as if she’s utterly pleased with that fact.
But her eyes are every bit as expressive as her father’s, revealing the truth in snippets that require deciphering.
“I don’t know what I did to scare them so much,” she says, throwing her hands into the air. “Maybe it was when I tried to microwave the cat?”
Any other time, with any other child, I’d be rightfully disgusted. Fearful, even. Maybe I should be in this case? I don’t know what it is about her gleeful, ghoulish expression that makes me perch on the end of her bed and cross my legs casually.
“Is that all?” I ask, an eyebrow raised. “I once threatened to turn my father’s prized stallion into glue. I even looked up the number for what I thought was the glue factory. Then I ran away with a duffle filled with barbie dolls and an entire box of pop tarts.”
She blinks, caught off guard.
“I didn’t make it far, mind you.” I extend my fingers, inspecting the pink polish. “I was barely past the tennis courts before I chickened out. Besides, I didn’t really want to hurt old Dauntless, anyway. I just wanted to make my parents squirm.” It’s an odd story to relay so bluntly. Something I predictably wouldn’t tell most people on our first meeting.
Magda frowns, unsure of how to process it.
“Did the Robinsons do something to you that made you want to make them squirm?” I ask, free of judgment.
She
