20. Zoya
ZOYA
For a few seconds, I just stare at him.
I’m standing by the sink with one hand still on a wet plate, and Ruslan is sitting at my kitchen table telling me that he was betrayed, and that if he leaves, he might lead danger back to my apartment.
My apartment. Where my daughters sleep. Where Mila keeps stickers on the coffee table and Nadia lines up her books by height.
I put the plate down carefully. “You should have told me this last night,” I say.
“I know.”
“No,” I say. “Don’t just say you know. You let me bring you here.”
“You brought me here because your daughter wouldn’t leave me.”
“My daughter is five.”
His face tightens. “I’m aware.”
“Are you?” I ask. “Because you’re sitting there telling me your men may have betrayed you like that is a normal breakfast update.”
“It is not normal.”
“But it is your life.”
He doesn’t deny it.
That makes me angrier.
Karina comes into the kitchen then, hair tied messily, bag over one shoulder. She has clearly heard at least the end of it because her face is already tense. “What happened?” she asks.
I point at Ruslan. “Apparently he can’t leave because someone in his world tried to kill him and might follow him back here.”
Karina closes her eyes. “Great. Wonderful. Exactly the peaceful morning I ordered.”
Ruslan says, “I won’t let anyone near this place.”
I laugh once. “You were shot yesterday.”
“That doesn’t make me useless.”
“No,” I say. “It makes you a wounded criminal in my kitchen.”
Karina looks at me. “Zoya.”
“What?”
“Girls,” she says quietly.
I look toward the hallway. Mila and Nadia are in the living room, arguing in low voices about whether a blanket fort counts as architecture. They can’t hear every word, but I lower my voice anyway.
“I don’t trust you,” I tell Ruslan.
His eyes hold mine. “You shouldn’t.”
That stops me for half a second.
Karina looks between us. “Okay. That answer was either honest or manipulative, and I hate that I can’t tell.”
Ruslan doesn’t respond.
Karina checks her phone and sighs. “I have to go home and shower before work. I can come back later.”
I look at her. “You don’t have to.”
“I know,” she says. “That’s why I’m saying I can.”
Her eyes flick to Ruslan. She still looks like she wants to ask him a hundred questions and hit him with a frying pan after each answer.
Instead, she hugs me. “Call me if anything feels wrong,” she says into my ear.
“Everything feels wrong.”
“Then call me if it gets worse.”
I nod.
She pulls back and looks at the girls in the living room. “Tiny chaos queens, Aunt Karina is leaving.”
The girls wave her goodbye together.
At the door, Karina turns back once. Her eyes move from me to Ruslan and back again. “Don’t be noble,” she tells me.
“I’m not noble.”
“Good. Stay that way.”
Then she leaves. The apartment feels smaller after the door closes.
I check the lock twice.
My phone buzzes on the counter.
For one awful second, I think it’s Unknown Number.
Then I see the school name.
Little Birch Early Learning: Due to necessary repairs and safety inspection, kindergarten will remain closed for the next two days. Further updates will follow.
I read it twice.
Of course.
Of course the school is closed.
I close my eyes.
Mila appears at my side. “Is school closed?”
I look down. “Yes. For two days.”
Nadia comes closer. “Does that mean we stay home?”
“Yes.”
“Do you have office?” Nadia asks.
I look at my laptop bag near the sofa. “Yes.”
I work remotely three days a week for a cataloguing and digital records company.
It’s not glamorous, but it pays regularly, and I can do most of it from home.
I help clean up old library and archive databases for schools, small museums, and private collections.
I correct metadata, tag scanned documents, check duplicate records, fix search categories, and attend meetings where people use the word “workflow” like it’s a religious belief.
Usually, it suits me.
Today, it feels impossible.
“I have two meetings,” I say. “And a batch of records due by evening.”
Mila raises her hand. “I can attend.”
“No.”
“I can be quiet.”
Nadia says, “You can’t.”
“I can be medium quiet.”
“No meetings,” I say.
Ruslan speaks from the table. “I can watch them.”
I turn slowly.
Then I look down at his leg. The bandage is clean, but his thigh is still stiff and swollen. He hasn’t stood without gripping furniture since morning.
“You?” I ask.
“Yes.”
“You were shot yesterday.”
“In the leg.”
“That’s usually where walking happens.”
“I can sit.”
Mila brightens. “We can sit too.”
Nadia looks at Ruslan with cautious interest. “Can you open juice boxes?”
Ruslan says, “Probably.”
I stare at him. “Probably?”
“I have opened worse things.”
“That is not reassuring.”
Mila takes his answer as a yes. “We can show him Bluey.”
Nadia says, “Bluey is emotionally advanced.”
Ruslan looks at her. “Is it?”
“Yes,” Nadia says. “Some episodes are for children, but some are for parents who need to think about their behavior.”
Ruslan glances at me.
I glare at him. “Don’t.”
He looks back at Nadia. “Then I should watch carefully.”
Mila nods. “You should.”
I should say no. Every sensible part of me says no.
But my first meeting starts in twelve minutes. The girls are fed, clean, and physically safe. Ruslan can’t exactly chase them around the apartment, and the living room is right outside my bedroom. I can keep the door open. I can hear them.
“You can’t call your men here,” I say.
“I’ll do my best,” he says.
Nadia folds her arms. “Better than your best.”
He gives her a serious nod. “Better than my best.”
I hate that he knows exactly how to speak to them.
I hate that they listen.
I hate that some tiny, tired part of me is relieved.
“Fine,” I say. “I will be in my room. Door open. I can hear everything.”
Mila cheers. “Bluey!”
Nadia goes to pick the episode because apparently that is now a leadership role.
I help Ruslan move from the kitchen chair back to the couch, though he tries to take less help than he needs. By the time he sits, his jaw is tight with pain.
“Painkiller,” I say.
“I took one.”
“You can take the next dose at twelve.”
“I know.”
“I wrote it down.”
“I saw.”
“Good.”
I grab my laptop and go into my bedroom before I can change my mind.
My room is not ready for work. There are folded clothes on the chair, a hairbrush on the bed, and one of Mila’s socks under the desk. I move everything quickly, open my laptop, and sign in.
My first meeting is with a school archive client in Pune. Their scanned records have duplicate student files from the 1980s and 1990s, and half the names are tagged wrong because the old forms were handwritten.
I put on my headset and join the call.
“Morning, Zoya,” my manager says. “Rough connection?”
“Rough morning,” I say, keeping my camera off.
Nobody asks. Thank God.
For the next hour, I try to be a normal employee.
I talk about duplicate matching rules. I explain why old admission numbers should be kept as secondary identifiers instead of being overwritten.
I share my screen and show them how the search filter breaks when the year field is left blank.
I make notes about a batch of scanned transfer certificates that need manual review.
From the living room, I hear Bluey’s opening music.
Then Mila laughs.
Then Nadia says, “No, that’s Bandit. He’s the father.”
Ruslan says something too low for me to hear.
A minute later, Mila says, “You have to watch from the beginning or you won’t understand the family system.”
I mute myself so the client doesn’t hear me sigh.
The second meeting starts before the first properly ends. This one is internal, about a new archive batch from a private college. Someone has uploaded documents without dates. Someone else wants us to “use judgment.” I explain, for the third time this month, that judgment is not a metadata field.
By the time I finally close the call, my neck hurts.
I realize the apartment is quiet. Too quiet.
I take off my headset and stand quickly. The bedroom door is still open. Nothing is broken. No one is crying.
I walk into the living room.
Ruslan is on the couch. Mila is tucked against his left side with a cushion under her chin. Nadia is on his right, sitting straighter, holding the remote like she has been appointed technical supervisor.
They’re watching Bluey. The episode is “Sleepytime,” because of course Nadia picked the one that makes adults question their entire emotional existence.
Ruslan sits between them, very still, his injured leg stretched out carefully on the coffee table with a pillow underneath. He looks like a mafia boss who has been taken hostage by two kindergarteners and is losing the negotiation.
Then I see his hair.
There are tiny clips in it.
Not one. Many. Pink butterfly clip near his temple. Yellow star clip holding back a strand above his ear. Two glittery snap clips placed unevenly on the other side. One purple bow sitting near the top of his head like it lost a war and stayed out of spite.
Mila looks up first. “Mama, we made him fancy.”
Ruslan looks at me without moving his head. His face is completely serious. I press my lips together, trying very hard not to laugh.
“What,” I ask slowly, “happened here?”
Mila sits up proudly. “He had hair.”
Nadia says, “That’s not an explanation.”
“He said we could,” Mila says.
I look at Ruslan.
He says, “I did not say that.”
Mila gasps. “You did.”
“I said you could show me the clips.”
The girls giggle.
“Never encourage them,” I say, rolling my eyes.
Ruslan turns his eyes to Mila. “I’m learning.”
I cover my mouth.
Nadia nods. “He asked why the father is a dog but still has human responsibilities.”
Ruslan says, “It was a reasonable question.”
I lose the fight and laugh.
Ruslan watches me when it happens.
The smile fades from my mouth because I notice. He’s not looking at the girls now. He’s looking at me. And for a second, with plastic clips in his hair and a children’s cartoon on the TV, there’s nothing soft about his gaze. It’s focused. Possessive. Too familiar.
My laugh dies.
Mila doesn’t notice. She points at the screen. “Mama, sit. This is the important part.”