16. Sofia
SOFIA
Damir doesn’t come home for breakfast.
Or lunch.
Not that I’m keeping track.
I am simply aware, in a completely normal and unemotional way, that the chair across from me remains empty, the coffee pot goes untouched except by me, and every man in this house becomes slightly more silent each time a phone rings.
That is all. Observation.
Not concern.
Certainly not concern for the man who dragged me out of a church, married me at gunpoint, gave me his father’s ring, and then did something with his fingers in his study that I am absolutely not thinking about while eating toast.
The toast is suffering. I’ve torn it into small pieces instead of eating it, which feels unfair to the toast but safer than admitting I’m waiting for him.
Marina notices. “Would you like something else, madam?” she asks.
“Sofia,” I remind her automatically.
“Sofia,” she corrects, though she says it quietly, as if the walls might report her for treason.
“No, thank you. The food is fine.”
“You haven’t eaten.”
“I’m bonding with it first.”
Her mouth almost twitches.
I like her. This is becoming a problem. I’ve been here less than a full day and already I like the coffee, the housekeeper, one of Damir’s cousins, and a child who believes cushion dragons commit war crimes.
I don’t like Damir.
That should be clear.
My body and I are currently in disagreement, but spiritually, I remain opposed.
“Mr. Volodin had business,” Marina says after a moment.
I look up too quickly. Traitor face. “I didn’t ask.”
“No.”
“Then why are you telling me?”
Her gaze softens in a way I don’t appreciate. “Because you were listening for cars.”
I look back at the toast. “Habit of growing up in the house that I did.” I had to walk on tiptoes around my uncle’s mood.
I glance at her.
She only lifts the coffee pot. “More coffee?”
“Yes,” I say. “Before I develop feelings.”
Her mouth twitches again.
After lunch, because staying in my room makes me feel like a patient in an expensive asylum, I go looking for Maksim.
I tell myself this is practical. Children are excellent sources of household information because adults underestimate them and because they have no concept of appropriate secrecy. Also, Maksim likes me, which immediately makes him superior to most of the men in this house.
I find him on the terrace.
Not the small balcony outside my room, unfortunately. The large terrace. The enormous one. The one built into the cliffside like someone looked at a terrifying drop into the sea and thought, What this needs is seating.
Maksim is kneeling beside a low stone planter, arranging wooden soldiers along the edge while the wind tears at his dark hair.
Beyond him, the terrace opens to a view so wide and dramatic it feels personally aggressive.
The sea below crashes against black rocks far, far beneath us, white foam bursting and disappearing.
The stone railing is solid, high enough to be safe, probably, but my stomach immediately disagrees.
I hate heights. Not mildly. Not in a cute way where I squeal and clutch someone’s arm. I hate them with the deep, ancestral certainty of a woman whose bones know the ground is where people belong.
Maksim looks up when he sees me. “You came.”
“I said I would.”
“Adults say things and then forget.”
“Not me. I’m very stubborn.”
“My papa says that is not always good.”
“Your papa has clearly never won an argument through exhaustion.”
Maksim considers that. “Did you bring reinforcements?”
“No, but I brought moral support.”
“What is moral support?”
“Standing nearby while you do dangerous things and saying helpful comments like, ‘Maybe don’t.’”
He nods seriously. “Good. The navy is losing.”
I look at the tiny soldiers lined along the planter. “To whom?”
“The sea monsters.”
I take one step farther onto the terrace. The wind immediately lifts my hair and drags cold fingers down the back of my neck. The water below surges against the cliff.
I look down by mistake. My stomach flips.
Nope. Absolutely not.
I take one step back.
Maksim frowns. “Are you scared?”
“Yes.”
He blinks, clearly surprised by my honesty. “Of sea monsters?”
“Of gravity.”
He looks over the railing, then back at me. “Gravity is not a monster.”
“That’s what gravity wants you to think.”
He seems to find this reasonable. “Uncle Damir is not scared of heights,” he says.
I try not to react to the name.
I fail, probably.
“Uncle Damir is probably not scared of taxes, bullets, or emotional intimacy either.”
“What is emotional intima—”
“Never mind.”
Maksim goes back to arranging his soldiers. “He went out.”
“So I heard.”
“He comes back.”
My throat tightens unexpectedly. I look at the sea instead of the child, which is terrible because the sea is still very far down and doing nothing for my nerves.
“Does he?”
“Yes. Papa says Uncle Damir always comes back.”
Children say things like that, with faith, and with the absolute confidence of someone whose world still has rules adults can obey.
I wonder when I lost that.
I lower myself onto a stone bench safely away from the railing and fold my hands in my lap. The Volodin ring sits absurdly large on my finger, the black thread holding it in place. Maksim spots it immediately because children, like crime lords, notice inconvenient details.
“That’s Uncle Damir’s ring.”
“Yes.”
“Why do you have it?”
“Because I complained.”
He looks impressed. “That works?”
“Rarely. Use with caution.”
“Can I complain and get a horse?”
“Start smaller.”
He picks up General Pepper. “A bigger horse?”
“Excellent negotiation.”
We play for a while. Or rather, Maksim plays and I offer strategic commentary from the bench like a duchess of questionable military expertise. The navy loses twice, recovers once, and then forms an alliance with the sea monsters after what Maksim describes as “talks with snacks.”
“Very realistic,” I say.
The wind grows colder. I wrap my arms around myself and try not to look toward the driveway beyond the side of the house, the one I know cars use when they return.
I fail. Again.
No cars. No Damir. Nothing but the gates, the trees, the cliff, and the annoying fact that I am aware of his absence like a missing sound.
Maksim notices me looking. “Uncle Damir has guns,” he says, as if that should comfort me.
“That doesn’t make people immortal.”
“My papa has guns too.”
“Your entire family has guns. That is not the reassurance you think it is.”
He studies me carefully. Then he says, “Are you worried?”
“No.” The answer comes quickly.
Maksim tilts his head.
I sigh. “A little.”
He seems satisfied with that. “Papa says worrying is what people do when they don’t get to fight.”
That sounds exactly like something Grigori would say.
Before I can answer, a woman’s voice cuts across the terrace. “Maksim!”
The sharpness of it makes him flinch.
I turn to see a woman hurrying through the terrace doors, her pale coat whipping around her knees, blond hair pinned tightly at the nape of her neck. She’s beautiful in a cold, careful way, all high cheekbones and controlled mouth, but her face is white with panic.
“Maksim, what are you doing out here?”
The boy scrambles to his feet. “I was playing.”
“You were told not to come onto the terrace without me or Nanny.”
“I wasn’t alone. Sofia is here.”
The woman’s gaze snaps to me. And freezes.
There is no warmth in it. None. Not even the polite curiosity people usually offer the newly arrived catastrophe in the family.
Her eyes drop to my hand, to the ring tied there, then lift to my face. Something hardens.
I stand, careful not to look toward the edge. “He was not near the railing.”
“That is not the point.” Her voice is controlled, but barely.
I keep mine gentle because there’s a child between us, and he’s watching with wide eyes. “He was playing quietly. I was with him.”
“I didn’t ask you to supervise my son.”
Ah. My son. So this is Grigori’s wife. The realization arrives with a small, unpleasant click.
I look at her properly now. The expensive coat. The guarded expression. The way she reaches for Maksim and pulls him against her side as if I’m a threat wearing borrowed green wool and a ring big enough to sink a small boat.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I didn’t know he wasn’t allowed out here.”
“You are new. There is much you don’t know.”
The words are not loud. They don’t need to be.
Maksim looks up at her. “Mama, Sofia helped General Pepper.”
“That is enough.”
His little face falls. I hate that.
“He didn’t do anything wrong,” I say before I can stop myself. “I was the adult here. If there was a rule, I should have asked.”
Her gaze returns to me, cold as the sea below. “Yes,” she says. “You should have.”
The silence after that is awful.
Maksim clutches General Pepper to his chest.
I feel suddenly, sharply out of place. Which is ridiculous because I have been out of place since I wrote Damir’s name on that envelope, but this is different. This woman belongs here. She knows the rules. The dangers. The locked doors. The men. The history.
I am the intruder in the borrowed dress. The woman whose arrival came with blood.
“I’m Sofia,” I say, because apparently I enjoy humiliation in fresh flavors.
“I know who you are.”
Of course she does. The whole city probably knows who I am now. The runaway bride. The stolen wife. The woman who married Damir Volodin while another man bled on the church floor.
She takes Maksim’s hand. “Come.”
“But, Mama—”
“Now.”
He gives me a helpless little look over his shoulder as she leads him away.
I lift a hand in goodbye. He lifts General Pepper in response.
Then they’re gone.
The terrace feels enormous without him. Too much sky. Too much water. Too much distance between me and anything solid. I sit back down because my knees feel untrustworthy. My fingers curl around the edge of the bench, and the ring knocks against the stone with a soft, heavy click.
I stare at it.
Grigori’s wife hates me. Or maybe she is afraid of me.
Maybe those are the same thing in this house.