“Thank you,” I chirped.
Sasha finally pushed off the doorframe and walked into the kitchen, moving with an effortless, predatory confidence capable of making the entire room shift slightly around him.
This weird, chaotic, domestic circus was still so strange to me, sometimes I felt like I might wake up and realize it was all just a dream.
In principle, these men should have terrified me, now stopped by my kitchen every morning, argued with me about frosting ratios, and asked me for life advice. Yesterday, Danil wanted to know whether he should call a girl back after three or two days.
Somehow, I had accidentally become the emotional support system for a group of extremely intimidating Russian criminals.
Life was sofucking weird.
My phone buzzed against the counter prompting me to glance down at the screen — and freeze. The name flashing on the screen hit me like someone quietly opening a door I had convinced myself would stay closed forever.
Mom.
For a second, I just stared at it, then Kyrill nudged me.
“You going to answer that?”
“Yes,” I said automatically, but my voice came out smaller than I’d expected.
Sasha noticed the change immediately. His expression shifted — subtle, but unmistakable.
Concern furrowed his brows. I slid off the stool and walked toward the open terrace doors, stepping outside where the breeze carried the smell of the ocean and the faint sound of waves breaking on the rocks.
Then I answered.
“Hello?”
There was a pause, and then my mother’s voice came through the line.
“Well,” she said, brisk and slightly annoyed, “I suppose if I wanted to speak to my daughter I had to call her myself.”
The words landed as they always had: a passive-aggressive remark intended to evoke the familiar stab of guilt.
But instead of feeling guilty, I just felt frustrated. For years, I had been the one to call. Texting. I was trying tomaintain a connection with someone who always made me feel like I was pushing a door shut from the other side.
And suddenly I was tired in an entirely unexpected way.
“Hi, Mom,” I sighed.
“You disappeared. No calls. No updates. Do you just not care anymore, Adelaide?”
I stared out at the ocean for a moment and inhaled.
“I noticed something recently,” I said quietly.
There was a pause before she answered. “What would that be?”
“Iwas always the one reaching out.”
There was silence on the other end of the line.
“I just called you,” she said defensively.
“Yes,” I agreed. “You did. For probably the first time in years. Not because you wanted to, but because you felt like you had to.”
“Adelaide—”