The last thing I need is anyone sniffing too close to the truth.
So instead, I keep my head down and mouth a quiet thank-you as Roman gestures me down the hallway to grab my coat.
We take one of the rental cars parked in the private lot out back and head deeper into the city. Roman drives us in silence, his hand resting on the gearshift, his expression impassive as always. But I can feel him watching me from the corner of his eye, checking for signs that I’m up to something despite my hands cupped together, perfectly innocent, in my lap.
People bustle down sidewalks with shopping bags. Some talk into their phones, sipping iced coffee because it's just another day for them and not the end of the world for someone like me. A street performer strums a guitar while a couple of kids dance around her. The wind whips hair and jackets, lifting the scent of food carts and something vaguely floral in through my window.
I try not to cry, but the sight of a boy across the street holding his mother’s hand nearly undoes me. And when Roman parks the car outside a small ice cream shop and we head inside, I completely fall apart because on the chalkboard menu behind the counter, written in bright blue, are the wordsCookie Dough Explosion.
Leo’s favorite.
My throat closes, my vision blurring. Before I can stop myself, I collapse at a nearby table and silently cry into my hands while he gets us two cups of frozen gelato. As soon as he comes back over to the table and sets one down in front of me, a small, strangled noise leaves him.
“Uh,” he says finally, shifting uncomfortably.
“It’s his favorite,” I choke out, tears spilling hot down my cheeks. “He loves cookie dough. He used to beg me for it every Friday. He’d eat until his stomach hurt and then still try to lick the bowl clean.”
Roman clears his throat. The sound is stiff and awkward. His eyes dart down and then over to the chair across from mine. After a beat, his fingers curl tightly around the back of as he drags it out. The legs scrape loudly against the tile floor before he sits.
His own cup of gelato thuds softly against the tabletop when he sets it down. He stares down at it like it’s a grenade he doesn’t know how to defuse. The curled tip of the frozen swirl is covered in rainbow sprinkles.
His spoon hovers over it. “That’s… tough.”
I laugh through the tears despite my horrific mood. “You’re terrible at this.”
Roman gives me a flat look, one that’s probably meant to be defensive but ends up just looking… lost. “I don’t… do crying women,” he admits bluntly, stabbing his spoon down into his treat. A few of the sprinkles scatter onto the table next to the cup. “My sister doesn’t cry. She’s more inclined to throw fists… or knives, for that matter. She’s not exactly a touchy-feely person.”
The honesty is so absurd that I can’t help but let out another watery laugh.
I press both hands to my face, but it’s no use. The tears keep coming, pouring through the cracks I’ve been trying to hold together with spit and stubbornness. And for some reason, sitting across from Roman—the most emotionally constipated man I’ve ever met—I start talking.
“I raised him all alone. Just me. No backup. I was no-contact with my family for years before I had him, so there was no one I could rely on to help pick up the slack when I felt like I was going to fall apart.” I stare down at the table, at the cup of melting gelato in front of me that I still haven’t touched.
Roman is silent.
I continue, voice trembling. “I tried…God, so hard to be both mother and father. I taught him how to ride a bike, how to count in Russian and English, how to tie his shoes and pack his lunch and say please and thank you…”
My breath catches. “But how do you explain that to a little boy? How do you make sense of it for someone who only knows that dads aresupposedto be there?”
Something shifts across Roman’s face. A flicker. His jaw tightens. “You chose that.”
I blink. “What?”
“Youchosethat,” he repeats. It isn’t in a cruel way, just matter-of-fact in the way only Roman could be. “You left Russia. You cut yourself off. You denied Maksim access to his son.”
The words hit like a slap. My spine straightens and heat floods my cheeks, this time not from sorrow but anger. “Excuse me?”
He doesn’t flinch. He just watches me, unblinking.
“You’re talking like it was some selfish decision. Like I wanted to disappear and screw him over. Do you haveanyidea what I was living through, all of that back then, as an outsider?” I snap.
Roman shrugs, still maddeningly calm. “You could’ve told him. He had a right to know.”
I lean across the table, my eyes narrowing in fury “Maksim was knee-deep in Bratva shit when I left. He was violent, emotionally shut off, constantly under fire from enemies none of you knew where they were coming from. I was barely twenty-one. You think raising a baby in that world would’ve been okay?”
His eyes narrow. “Regardless… You think keeping Leo from him all this time was still the right call to make?”
“I didn’t want to!” I shoot back, louder than I meant to.