Chapter 26
LYRA
“You can go home, Ly,” Mama says. “No sense in waiting here. We’re only fifteen minutes away, and I can call you when the doctor comes out.”
“Not a chance. I want to know the second you know.”
Mama opens her mouth to speak, likely to protest, but then closes it. She knows well by now that there’s no talking me down when I get my mind set on something.
Julian hasn’t left my side since he came back from the billing department. He’s just sitting in an uncomfortable chair in a hospital with me.
It’s exactly what I need.
Mom’s trying to watch TV, a Styrofoam cup of coffee in her hands that she hasn’t taken a single sip from. She’s been stealing glances at Julian with all the subtlety of a woman who taught kids for thirty years and never needed to develop a poker face.
“So, Julian,” she says finally. “Lyra tells me that you just starting running the company.”
He nods. “That’s the simplest way to put it.”
“And you flew down here tonight with her on no notice?”
“It wasn’t a difficult decision, Mrs. Thibodeaux.”
“Sam.” She studies him. “You paid for my husband’s surgery. That’s not something a boss typically does for an employee.”
An uncomfortable silence follows. There’s so much my mom doesn’t know about Julian. It’s easy to tell she knows something is amiss about this, but she’s only feeling around the edges.
Julian turns and meets Mama’s gaze in the way he meets everyone’s gaze—directly, without deflection. But this time, his expression softens a bit.
“Lyra is important to me,” he says. “Therefore, the people who are important to her are important to me. That’s as simple an answer as I can give.”
Mama nods, then sets down the coffee she was never going to drink. “Tell me about your family, Julian. Do you have siblings?”
I shift in my seat. Luckily, my parents decided that they didn’t like Alexander right from the start and barely got to know him after that. But still, do we want to disclose that Julian is Alexander’s brother?
He glances at me, silently asking permission. I take a moment to think it over, then nod.
“I have a half-sister,” he replies, “Anya. She works with us. And my brother, I believe you know him already. Alexander.”
Mama’s eyes go wide. “Wait… Alexander? As in the Alexander? The one you almost married, Ly?”
“That’s the one,” I say.
Mama sits there for a moment with her eyes wide. I can sense she knows this isn’t something to get into at the moment.
“Okay,” she says. “Let’s table that for now. Your parents?”
“Both have passed,” Julian says. “My father died of heart failure several years ago. My mother passed when I was ten from cancer.”
“And how did they meet?”
“My mother moved to Moscow after university, met my father, and spent the rest of her life making him a better man. By most accounts, she succeeded.”
“She sounds like a strong woman.”
He nods. “She was the strongest person I’ve ever known.
” He rubs his thumb over his knuckle—a gesture I’ve never seen from him before.
“She started a foundation for children before she died. Orphanages, education, foster care support. It’s the main reason I came back to the company.
Alexander didn’t give it the attention it deserved. ”
Mama leans forward. “That’s the foundation Lyra works on.”
“That’s the foundation Lyra is saving,” he corrects. “She’s better at it than anyone we’ve ever had.”
My face warms, and I do my best to suppress a spreading smile.
The conversation drifts. Mama asks about New York, about the company, about whether or not Julian has ever eaten a proper po’boy—he hasn’t—and Julian answers with total patience and attentiveness, as if there’s nowhere else on earth he’d rather be than sitting here and chatting with Mama.
I listen happily. Mama asks more questions, the way she always does with new people.
He tells her about living in Moscow, about how his father sent him to a boarding school in Connecticut when he was fourteen, because he wanted to get him used to America.
He says he hated it at first—the rules and how the American boys mocked his accent.
But then he says he grew to love it.
She asks him about work, and he tells her about his time abroad over the past three years.
Not the details, of course, but about the sights and sounds of Beijing, his apartment overlooking the Forbidden City.
About his months in Shanghai, the noise and the neon, and the strange loneliness of living in a city where no one other than a few know your name.
I’m fascinated by the way he describes it—like a business trip that lasted too long.
At 3:15 a.m., Mama falls asleep with her head on my shoulder. Julian’s still awake, alert and ready for anything. He sits on my other side, my hand in his. I am trying to ignore the worry and the fear, the not knowing of what my father is going through.
“Julian… why did you come?”
He keeps his eyes forward.
“Because you needed me.”
“No. Why did you really come?”
He’s quiet for a long moment, then he takes a slow breath and speaks.
“Because I read the note and realized that you had something important to tell me but felt like you couldn’t. And that I made you feel that way.”
I shift in my seat, not sure how his words make me feel.
“I should’ve just told you. I should’ve come back and told you.”
“You shouldn’t have had to. That’s on me. Not you.”
I lean my head against his shoulder and close my eyes.
At 4:22 a.m., the double doors open.
Dr. Broussard is a tall man with kind eyes. He’s dressed in surgical scrubs, his face showing the sort of exhaustion you’d expect from someone who’s been standing over an open chest for three hours. He pulls his mask down, and for one terrible second, I expect the worst.
Then he smiles.
“The surgery was a success. He’s in recovery. His vitals are strong.”
Mama wakes up when I sit up straighter in my seat, trying not to jump up with excitement. When she sees Dr. Broussard’s face and smile, she begins to cry. They are tears of happiness and relief; tears she’s been holding back for weeks.
I’m crying, too. Mama and I hold each other.
He’s alive. He’s going to be okay.
Julian doesn’t say a word. He gently puts his hand on my back and lets us have the moment.
When I look up at him through teary eyes, there’s a small smile on his face and an almost imperceptible glassiness in his eyes.
My parent’s house is a shotgun double on Piety Street in the Bywater—white clapboard, wraparound porch, and green shutters, with a porch swing built by my dad the summer I turned eight. The magnolia tree out front is older than the house.
Julian stands in the living room, looking at framed photos on the mantel. There’s one of me in a Mardi Gras costume as a baby, me at sixteen in a prom dress I’d saved six months for, and one of my parents on their wedding day outside St. Augustine Church, my grandmother Rose standing nearby.
“Stop analyzing the layout,” I say with a smile. “There’s the front door, the back door, and maybe a dozen windows. We’ll be fine.”
“Nine windows,” he says.
I glance down the hallway toward the bedroom. “Should we get some sleep? We’ve been up all night.”
“Couldn’t sleep if I wanted to,” he says. “Too keyed up.”
“Yeah, same. In that case… coffee?”
“Sounds perfect.”
He follows me into the kitchen, where I make coffee in Mama’s ancient percolator. We drink in silence, and I get the sense that Julian is giving me space to let me process everything. When we finish our coffee, we take separate showers. I dig through my duffel and change into some comfy clothes.
I find one of Dad’s old, over-sized Saint’s tee shirts for Julian. He throws it on with his slacks, and I giggle at the sight—an old tee with tailored expensive pants.
“Come on,” I say. “I want to show you something.”
Early morning in the Bywater is glorious. The light hits different there as it filters through the humidity and the live oaks with hanging Spanish moss. We walk down St. Claude, past the corner shops and the murals painted on brick walls.
He seems less tense. He’s letting his guard down, and I like it.
The Frenchman Street market is almost in full swing. It’s a festival that spills across the intersection with food carts, brass bands, and a crowd that moves to its own rhythm. I pull Julian through it, stopping at a cart that sells boudin balls. “We have to get some of these,” I tell him.
Next, we stop in front of Café Beignet’s pop-up cart, where I order half a dozen. Before he knows what’s happening, I have one in front of his face.
“Try this.”
He regards me with skepticism before taking a bite. Powdered sugar explodes across the front of Dad’s tee. He looks down at himself, then at me. To my surprise, Julian Volkov laughs, truly laughs. It’s a genuine belly laugh, and it makes my heart light.
“Very good,” he says, taking another bite. “And very powdery.”
We eat our way down the street. I make him try crawfish etouffee, shrimp and grits, po’ boys, and anything else that attracts my eye—and stomach.
In those moments, it’s just us. He’s just Julian and I’m just Lyra. He’s not a Bratva boss or a CEO, and I’m not a woman trying to process that I’m caught up in all of it along with him.
We just are.