22. Kirill
Kirill
My throat tightens at the sight of Violet clinging to Sandrine. And the gasp that scraped from my throat startled them both.
Violet looks up at me with a grin so wide it nearly splits her face in half. “Daddy! I found Mommy!”
The delight in her voice hits me like a bullet to the chest.
Everything inside me goes hot. Not because I’m angry.
Not because Sandrine disobeyed me and didn’t go back to her room after I told her to.
Not because I found Violet’s chair at the kitchen table empty, her snack half eaten.
Not because the sounds of laundry banging around a dryer behind the kitchen suggested Nadia was in there and she lost track of my daughter for all of ten fucking minutes.
Violet is five and doesn’t require 24/7 supervision. But with her mother in the house, I should have put them both on lockdown with several guards.
No.
For five years I have nursed this exact image in my head like a scar on my brain. Sandrine holding Violet. Violet clinging to her mother. I picked at it until it became mangled.
My daughter is finally in her mother’s arms again. My family is under one roof again.
It was a fantasy so dangerous I stopped letting myself picture it. And now I’m watching it breathe.
Sandrine glances up slowly, and I can see the panic in her eyes.
“I was on my way upstairs,” she starts, but her hands never leave Violet. “I didn’t mean to—”
“Mommy was playing with me.” She says Mommy and grabs her mother’s arm before Sandrine can move away from her.
Jesus Christ.
My heart twists, seeing how Violet doesn’t hold back.
Acts like Sandrine never left. I guess children don’t overcomplicate love.
My daughter feels safe with her mother. Maybe that’s instinctive, too.
That and all the sweet stories I told her so she didn’t feel like she didn’t have a mother.
A make-believe one was better than one who abandoned her.
I wish it were that easy for me. What I feel for Sandrine today is complicated.
My wife braces, clearly waiting for me to stop this, to pull Violet away, to remind her this was not supposed to happen yet.
To yell. To… God no, I would never strike her.
If there is only one version of me that I want her to remember, it’s the one where I was gentler with her than I was with anything on this planet.
Before Violet.
But I had a plan. It was for their own good. Sandrine is fragile right now, whether she likes hearing it or not. Her memories are returning to her in rapid flashes, disorienting her. She could fall down holding my daughter.
And Violet… God, Violet attaches with her whole heart. If Sandrine rejected her, even accidentally out of self-preservation, it would devastate my daughter.
If Sandrine left again?
It would destroy both of us.
Those were the decisions I made twenty-four hours ago. That now feels like a lifetime ago. Right now, they look so comfortable together. Sandrine isn’t spiraling. She only looks terrified of me.
“See?” Violet says proudly, looking up at Sandrine. “I told you Mommy was well enough to play with me.”
Sandrine cracks a faint smile, tucking a strand of hair behind Violet’s ear with an instinct so natural it nearly brings me to my knees.
“I am,” she says, glancing back at me, and then down at Violet. “I’m home, sweetie.”
Christ, her version of motherhood was buried beneath the amnesia. I heard Lourdes tell her, the mind forgets, but the heart doesn’t.
And muscles always remember. Right now. A particular muscle of mine is reacting to seeing Sandrine back where she belongs.
That realization wrecks me. It’s with terrifying clarity that I realize I already lost this fight.
Not the war on the streets. Not the Bratva war I’m raging in other cities.
An emotional one. I can’t keep them apart now.
Not after seeing this. Not after watching how my daughter is so happy in her mother’s arms.
The hard thump of hurried footsteps over thick carpet breaks the silence. The nanny rushes into the parlor, looking breathless and pale. The second she sees Violet, relief floods her face.
“There you are,” Nadia blurts out, her frightened gaze landing on me.
I hate that look. It’s almost painful to witness. Only my enemies should look at me like that. Seeing it on someone Violet trusts sickens me.
“I was in the laundry room,” she explains.
“It’s fine,” I say flatly with a reassuring nod.
“Violet, you need to finish your snack.” Nadia holds out her hand for my daughter.
She groans dramatically and throws herself against Sandrine’s stomach. “But we’re playing.”
“What game?” I ask, curious.
“Find me, find me,” my daughter chirps.
The words hollow me out. That’s our game.
Let Daddy find you. Daddy will always find you.
Now she’s playing it with Sandrine. Jealousy flashes through me so unexpectedly it almost pisses me off. But this is what I wanted. I wanted my wife home. For my daughter to have her mother back. I just didn’t realize it would feel so complicated, mixed in with what I need from Sandrine as my wife.
In my bed.
And not just to give me more children. To please me and spread her legs to let me please her.
“Snack time, Violet.” The nanny inches closer carefully, unsure who is actually in charge. “And then we’ll read.”
“Nooo.” My daughter presses tighter against Sandrine. “I want to stay with Mommy.”
My jaw tightens. This is exactly what I was trying to avoid.
I step forward, crouching in front of Violet until we’re eye level. “Solnyshko, you do as you’re told. Nothing’s changed. Your mommy isn’t going anywhere. She’s home.”
“But—”
“No arguments.”
She pouts and folds her arms. Under any other circumstance, I probably would have caved. Violet gets away with far more than she should because I decided a long time ago there is very little in this world I would deny her.
Before I can say anything else, Sandrine speaks. “We can play again tomorrow. If your father says it’s okay.”
“Please, Daddy? Mommy’s not sick anymore.”
Christ.
“You can play with Mommy again tomorrow.”
Violet spins and cheers like she just won the Super Bowl. I’m outnumbered. This is how it’s going to be, but I don’t hate it.
I exhale slowly. “Now, go have your snack.”
“Come, Violet.” Nadia finally manages to coax her away.
Halfway out the door, my daughter twists around again. “Bye, Mommy!”
Sandrine smiles. “Bye, Violet.”
Violet beams, and they disappear down the hallway, her little voice fading into the distance.
The tension thickens with just the two of us left in the parlor. Sandrine’s confidence crumbles. She looks overwhelmed and emotionally drained.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers, sitting in a chair.
“It’s all right. I only want what’s best for both of you.” I drift close to her. “But it seems you both knew what was best.”
“She looked at me like she already loved me,” Sandrine says on a choked sob.
The ache in my chest deepens. “She does.”
Sandrine’s eyes close briefly, like my words physically hurt to hear. “Thank you. For not letting her think I left her on purpose. Even though you believed I had.”
And how that dread metastasized in my heart over the years. What started out as a horrific, can’t-possibly-happen excuse grew teeth and bit away at my flesh more and more every day.
“I didn’t think…” Sandrine swallows hard. “I didn’t think she’d want me.”
“She’s waited for you her entire life,” I say.
Sandrine looks down at her hands. “God, I feel awful.”
The naked honesty in her voice shatters me.
An hour ago, this woman who’d not seen me in five years asked me if we would ever share a bed again. I had told her maybe because I was too proud and too damaged to admit how she completely owned me at one time, and that’s why her leaving wrecked me.
I make an impossible offer before I can think better of it. “Come out with me tonight.”
Her head lifts immediately. “What?”
“We never got to do things normally.” The words feel strange in my mouth. “We hid. We met in secret.”
She studies me with cautious hope in her gaze. “Are you sure?”
Now I want the entire fucking world to look at her and know she’s mine. “I want to find my way back to you,” I whisper roughly. “If that’s what you want.”
“I think what I really want is somewhere in here,” she says softly, pointing to her heart.
“Is that a yes?”
“Yes.” She steps away. “I’ll go find something to wear.”
My heart pounds violently as I watch her walk away. Never had a one-word response terrify me more than any threat I’ve faced in years.
Before today, I thought I needed Sandrine back. After watching my daughter grasp her mother like she never wanted to let go, I realized I had it all wrong.
I wanted my wife back.
That is an entirely different kind of need.