18. Alexei
ALEXEI
The mansion goes quiet before I even step through the front doors. Conversations lower into murmurs, footsteps slow, and men who were speaking freely only seconds earlier suddenly remember discipline.
The place never reaches true silence anymore.
Security radios crackle through hidden earpieces while surveillance monitors glow downstairs around the clock, but the atmosphere changes the second I walk inside.
Fear does that to people. Respect does too.
Most of my men understand the difference between the two, and the intelligent ones understand that both matter equally.
The bruise across my right hand aches beneath the fresh wrapping while Viktor takes my jacket beside the entrance. My fingers flex once before I curl them again, heat pushing through the torn skin across my knuckles. No one comments on it.
Luka steps forward from the hallway near the security office, tension shadowing his face beneath the warm lighting spilling from the sconces.
“Roman called twice,” he says. “He wants updates the second you’re free.”
“Did we get anything useful?”
“Not yet.”
I rub the back of my neck slowly. “The warehouse?”
His jaw clenches. “Cleaned.”
That means the men responsible are either dead already or close to it. Good.
A quiet laugh rises from deeper inside the house before I can answer him again.
Maggie.
The sound hits my chest harder than the fight earlier tonight. The knot in my chest loosens. Then, I walk farther into the house.
The scent of warm vanilla mixed with sugar and melted butter reaches me before the kitchen comes fully into view.
It glows beneath golden pendant lights while flour dusts half the marble island and cookie dough covers nearly every available surface.
Ivy stands barefoot on one of the stools, wearing pink pajamas, while Maggie stands beside her, laughing at whatever disaster they have created.
My daughter has flour tangled through her dark hair, and Maggie has a streak of white across one cheek and dough smudged near the sleeve of her shirt.
My steps slow automatically. For one painful second, the entire room looks ordinary, warm, and untouched by the violence waiting outside these walls.
The normalcy almost feels like anger because normal is dangerous in my world. Normal convinces people they are safe long enough to lower their guard, and lowered guards get people hurt.
Maggie looks up first, and the smile on her face fades the second her eyes land on me, not from fear but from recognition. She finally sees the part of me I’ve kept buried beneath tailored suits, calm answers, and polished manners.
Her eyes move from my face down to my hand. Then farther toward the faint blood staining my cuff. Every muscle in her body stiffens.
Ivy spins around on the stool when she hears me approaching. “Papa!”
She launches herself off the stool before Maggie can stop her.
Ivy crashes into my chest at full speed.
My arm circles her automatically while I lift her against me, and she immediately starts talking fast enough that half the words blend.
Her little hands grip my shoulders while she rambles about cookie dough disasters, Winston stealing ingredients off the counter, and Maggie allegedly betraying her by revealing the true number of eggs destroyed during baking.
“We made cookies and Maggie let me crack the eggs and I only dropped one and Winston stole dough off the counter and Irina said he looked guilty but Maggie said dogs don't feel guilt.”
I kiss the top of her head, breathing in the familiar strawberry scent from her shampoo.
Home used to mean Clara’s laugh echoing through this house and Ivy asleep against my chest after long nights.
Now the meaning has expanded to this little girl in my arms and the woman standing across the kitchen, staring at me as if she no longer knows what to make of me.
“You dropped three eggs,” Maggie says.
Ivy gasps theatrically. “Traitor.”
Maggie laughs, and the sound lightens the atmosphere in the kitchen almost instantly. Men near the back hallway relax again. One of the guards resumes speaking quietly into his earpiece.
Everyone in this house watches my mood before deciding how to breathe around me, and Maggie is no exception. Her attention keeps returning to my hand, to the bruised knuckles and blood staining my cuff.
“Papa hurt his hand,” Ivy says suddenly.
Children notice everything.
I glance down at her. “It's nothing serious, solnyshko.”
Maggie folds her arms slowly across her chest. “Looks serious enough.”
The softness in her voice disappears, replaced by frustration sharp enough to cut through glass. Good. I prefer anger to fear because fear creates distance, while anger means she still plans to fight rather than walk away. Even if part of me knows she probably should.
I set Ivy down before moving toward the sink. The faucet water is cold on my knuckles while diluted blood circles down the drain.
Maggie steps closer, inspecting my hand. “You need stitches.”
“Already handled.”
“Alexei.”
She’s frustrated now, and beneath it lies real worry. That combination reaches places inside me I stopped expecting anyone to touch years ago.
I dry my hand slowly before meeting her eyes. “I told you I would handle it.”
“That isn't an answer, but I’ll let it go for now because of Ivy,” she whispers, lifting her chin.
She has no idea what that stubbornness could cost her around men like me.
The way she lifts her chin and argues anyway pulls at every violent instinct I have because men in my world don’t protect softness like hers.
They use it. They exploit it. And God help me, all I want to do is drag her farther from all of this before someone realizes how much she matters to me.
Ivy interrupts before I can respond.
“Can Papa help decorate cookies?”
I smile at my daughter, then roll up my sleeves.
“One cookie,” I tell her.
She cheers like I agreed to buy her a pony.
Maggie watches me move beside Ivy at the island while suspicion and emotional exhaustion battle across her face. I know exactly what she sees—the contradiction.
Less than an hour ago, I stood inside a freezing warehouse listening to a man choke on blood through broken teeth while Roman's men pinned him against concrete, demanding answers about the Italians.
Now I stand beside my six-year-old daughter, spreading pink frosting across a crooked sugar cookie.
Most people would break under the strain of holding both realities at once.
I learned a long time ago that softness without violence gets people killed.
Ivy sticks out her tongue as she concentrates on sprinkling colored sugar onto her cookie. “Mine's prettier than yours.”
“Impossible,” I reply.
Maggie snorts before she can stop herself, and my eyes lift toward her. There it is again, that warmth she keeps pulling out of me without even trying, along with the ache of wanting a life that wasn’t meant for me.
She has flour across her cheek, and before I can think better of it, I reach toward her face.
Maggie goes still the moment my hand touches her, and the entire kitchen seems to pause.
My thumb brushes beneath her eye, wiping away the streak of flour while her breath stutters between us. Mine does too.
The bruise across my knuckles looks ugly against her skin, dark and violent beside her softness, and I wonder if she finally sees me clearly enough to hate what stands in front of her.
But instead of pulling away, she leans into my touch just slightly, and that small movement destroys whatever restraint I still had left tonight.
I lower my hand before I do something reckless, like pull her into my arms right there in the middle of the kitchen.
“Ivy,” Maggie says after a moment, “you promised Winston and Daisy one cookie each, remember?”
“Winston already stole dough,” Ivy says, wrinkling her nose.
Irina gives Winston a long look. “Yes, but apparently theft was not enough for him tonight.”
Ivy giggles before hopping down from the stool with two cookies clutched carefully in her hands. Winston nearly knocks himself sideways trying to follow her while Daisy trots after them with much more dignity.
“Gentle,” Maggie warns through a laugh when Winston practically launches himself toward the cookie.
“He’s spoiled,” Ivy complains while lifting the treat higher above his nose.
“That dog gets it from you,” Irina mutters while starting to gather measuring cups from the island.
Ivy gasps loudly. “Rude.”
I watch Maggie laugh wholeheartedly, and the sound works through me in ways I no longer understand how to manage.
Ivy crouches beside the dogs near the sitting area off the kitchen while Winston devours his cookie in one bite, and Daisy takes hers delicately from Ivy’s hand. The little smile spreading across Ivy’s face afterward looks so open and happy that my chest squeezes unexpectedly.
This is what Clara used to protect—Ivy’s softness and her happiness.
Irina begins stacking bowls into the sink, then glances at the clock on the wall. “All right, printsessa. Cookie operation is over. It is time to clean up and get to bed.”
“But Papa just got home.”
“It is still bedtime,” Irina replies without sympathy while wiping flour from the counter.
Ivy sighs before wandering back toward the island to help clean up. Maggie joins her, rinsing the measuring spoons while Ivy carefully pours leftover sprinkles back into the containers, with the concentration of a surgeon.
While Irina turns toward the pantry, Maggie steps closer to me near the edge of the island.
“We still need to talk,” she whispers enough that Ivy can’t hear.
I hold her eyes before nodding. “We will.”
“When?”
“As soon as Ivy goes to bed.”
Maggie searches my face like she’s trying to decide whether to trust that answer. Before she can respond, Ivy spins around.
“Maggie has to read a bedtime story tonight.”
I arch an eyebrow. “Not me?”
“Not you tonight.” Ivy points toward Maggie decisively. “Her.”