Chapter Iosif
Iosif
My uncle is the last to leave.
He doesn't go immediately. He waits until the others have filed out.
My cousins make varying degrees of noise about it, my brother, Zakhar, pauses in the doorway to look between Mia and I with an expression bordering disbelief.
Then Yury stands in the kitchen with his coffee and looks at me in the way that means he's going to say the thing I've asked him not to say.
"Don't," I say, acutely aware of how Mia is sitting right there at the kitchen island, pushing pieces of fruit around a bowl with the tip of a fork.
He sets his mug down. "I'm not suggesting anything," he says. "I'm observing." He moves toward the door. "Just don't be an idiot about it. Not when the answer is right in front of you."
Then he leaves.
I look over at Mia. She's been managing it well…
being in a room full of Dubovich men at eight in the morning.
She held herself quietly without being diminished by it, answered when spoken to, didn't flinch under my uncle's assessment, which most people find difficult even when they're not running on no sleep and the aftermath of what she’s been through in the last twenty-four hours.
She's thinking. Hard.
"You can say it," I say.
She turns her head. "Say what?"
"Whatever it is you've been working up to since you walked in."
She places the fork down with a sigh. Then: "I heard you. Before I came in."
I put my own mug down. "I know."
"You knew?"
"The third tile from the door creaks," I say. "Which means you heard most of what we were discussing."
She stares at me. Something shifts in her expression, but it doesn’t look like embarrassment at being caught out.
"What mandate?" she says.
I pull out the stool opposite her and sit down as I consider her across the counter. The borrowed clothes, the hair pulled back, the shadows under her eyes that tell me she got perhaps three hours of sleep if I'm generous, and I decide, as I decided last night, that this woman gets the truth.
"My uncle," I say. "A few months ago, he informed his nephews that each of us was required to produce an heir. Within twelve months."
She blinks. "Required."
"Yes,” I say on a sigh. “He's the head of this family. What he requires tends to happen."
"And your cousins…" she trails off.
"All complied." I keep my voice level. "One by one."
She's quiet for a moment, processing this. "And you're the last one."
"Yes."
"How much time do you have left?"
I look at her. "Not much."
She nods slowly, turning this over. I can see her arriving at the next question before she asks it, and I can see her decide to ask it anyway, which is something I'm starting to recognize as simply what she does.
"Is that what they were suggesting?" she says. "About me."
"Yes."
"And you said no."
“I said no.”
She's quiet again. Outside the window, the grounds are grey and frost-edged, the kind of January morning that looks like a landscape held in suspension. She looks out at it for a moment and then back at me.
"Why?" she says.
It's a simple question. But it's not a simple question at all.
"Because you didn't come here for that," I say. "You came here because your feet brought you somewhere while your brain was somewhere else entirely. That's not a choice. I'm not going to hold you to consequences you didn't agree to."
"But the deadline is real," she says. Not pushing. Just accurate.
"Yes."
"And your uncle—"
"My uncle will do what he does," I say. "That's my problem. Not yours."
She holds my gaze for a moment, and I watch something work itself out behind her eyes. Then she says, so quietly it almost doesn't carry: "I'm sorry. That you're in that position."
I look at her.
I'm not accustomed to people being sorry on my behalf.
I'm accustomed to people being afraid of my position, or wanting something from it, or simply working around it.
Sympathy is not something I have a ready mechanism for.
It feels unexpected, that simple statement, like a stone dropped into very still water.
"I’ll handle it," I say.
She makes a sound. Not quite a laugh.
"That's your go-to for everything, isn't it?" she says.
"It usually is."
She looks at me for a long moment with that direct, unarmored look. "Can I ask you something else?"
"Yes."
“You have a mandate. I have a reason to disappear. Would you consider a relationship with me to fulfill your mandate, and protect me? Like a contract?”
I frown. Why would she offer such a thing? I look over her and wonder how it is she can keep surprising me.
“You don’t need to do that. You’ve been through enough.”
“Oh, I see.” She drops her head and lowers her eyes from mine. But I still see the crease in her forehead when she frowns.
“What do you see?” I ask, confused.
“I’m not your type. It’s fine. I didn’t mean to be so forward. I guess I’m just all mixed up with everything that’s happened…” She gives a half shrug and an awkward smile, but still won’t meet my eyes.
“Look at me,” I say, then I wait as she pulls together the courage to do as I ask. I think about my next words carefully. “You’re not lacking anything,” I tell her. “Not in looks. Not in mind. I’m not blind, Mia.”
I let that sit.
“But I met you on the worst night of your life. I’m not going to build something permanent on top of that.”
I put my hand over hers, hoping the contact won’t startle her.
“My decision is nothing to do with how attracted I am to you, and everything to do with how I won’t take advantage of you while you are vulnerable.”
She nods slowly, her throat working a little.
“It’s funny,” she finally says. “I don’t feel vulnerable when I’m with you.”