10. Ruslan
Ruslan
Emma owns almost nothing. That information shouldn’t bother me, but it does. I stand in the doorway of the guest room the next morning, watching her attempt to pack for Colorado with one half-empty suitcase and an expression that suggests she already knows I am judging the contents.
“Please stop looking at my belongings like they personally offended you,” she mutters without turning around.
“There are approximately four shirts in this suitcase.”
“I was on vacation, Ruslan. I was supposed to be leaving by now.”
My eyes flash up at that admission. “What have you told—are there people waiting for you?” I ask sharply.
Emma sucks her bottom lip into her mouth. I feel a mixture of anxiety and that protective instinct that I can’t seem to shake around her. I promised her I wouldn’t ask questions about who she was, where she came from; which means I can’t protect her from the things she wants to hide away.
“I told my family I found a job out here. That I’m staying for a bit.”
A strange silence settles between us as Emma rearranges the same sparse clothing again.
I move farther into the room, surveying the disaster more carefully. Jeans. Two pairs of shorts. A handful of casual tops. One decent dress. A pair of boots that have clearly survived war crimes.
No formalwear. No winter clothing appropriate for Colorado this time of year, which will be shifting into autumn soon.
“No,” I decide flatly.
Emma freezes mid-fold. “No, what?”
“This won’t do.” I pull my phone from my pocket. “Get dressed.”
“I am dressed.” In those sinful black leggings, I can’t look away. No, I need her in something else.
“Properly. The jeans. This top.”
“Wow.”
I’m already texting security to prepare the car before she can argue further.
Unfortunately—
“Are we going somewhere?!”
Kate appears in the doorway like a cat who licked the cream, a devious look on her face, blonde hair already escaping a braid. Her eyes light up instantly at the sight of both of us standing together.
I suppress a sigh. “Yes,” I say carefully. Because if I leave the house, she’s coming. But Emma doesn’t know that, and shoots me a confused look.
“Shopping?” my niece guesses immediately.
Emma crosses her arms. “Your uncle thinks I dress like a depression-era orphan.”
“You’re embellishing.”
Kate gasps dramatically. “Oh my God, are we doing rich people shopping?”
I regret everything.
Ordinarily, I would never bring Kate anywhere near situations involving business arrangements, revenge plots, or complicated women connected to my brother. I deliberately built walls around her life. School. Friends. Safety. Distance from men like me.
But Mrs. Alvarez called this morning, crying softly through the phone while explaining her diagnosis. Cancer, metastasized. She doesn’t have very long, and I won’t deny her time with her family.
The word still sits wrong in my head.
She has cared for Kate for six years. Fed her, scolded her, protected her while I handled the uglier parts of my world elsewhere. Now she is sixty-three, widowed, and facing chemotherapy mostly alone. Chemotherapy that has a higher chance of not working than of making a difference.
And suddenly I am responsible for balancing two dangerous parts of my life at the exact same time.
Kate bounces fully into the room before I can object further. “Can Emma get one of those giant fancy coats rich people wear in Christmas movies?”
A small part of me is proud that Kate doesn’t seem to identify with the “rich people” she keeps mentioning. From the moment I found her and brought her here, I was terrified that I was ruining her somehow; that she wouldn’t grow to be well-adjusted. Normal.
Emma snorts softly while zipping the suitcase closed. “I’d settle for anything that makes me blend in.”
Reasonable.
I watch her lift the suitcase herself and immediately take it from her without thinking. Emma pauses, then looks up at me strangely. I’m suddenly aware of the domesticity of the gesture.
“Thank you,” she says quietly.
The softness in her voice unsettles me more than anger ever does.
Clearing my throat, I move toward the hallway instead. “You’ll need clothing suitable for political events. The gala they’re sure to have, the engagement party, the wedding itself.”
“And snow,” Kate adds importantly. She was sad to be told last night that I’d be leaving her here to travel to Colorado for an unknown length of time. Stepan is working hard to find someone to step in for Mrs. Alvarez; a mix of babysitter and bodyguard.
“And snow,” I agree, not thinking twice when my niece slips her hand into mine and tugs me into the hallway.
Emma follows, her eyes narrowed in a way that makes my heart thud uncomfortably. As if someone is seeing me naked, without weapons, without the mask that is my alter-ego.
And despite every instinct telling me this arrangement is becoming far too personal; I find myself slowing slightly so they can both keep pace beside me as we head downstairs together and out to the waiting car.
* * *
I could bring her to Lord&Lion, but I don’t.
Some instinct tells me she wouldn’t be comfortable there.
Instead, we drive into the fashion district, tight-knit streets with minimalist doors and almost no windows.
Everyone knows what’s inside just from the names on the buildings. Nothing else is needed.
Shopping with Emma and Kate is its own particular form of psychological warfare. Kate darts through the store, gasping and murmuring while Emma trails beside me, looking increasingly horrified by every visible price tag.
“I’m serious,” she mutters under her breath as we pass another display of handbags worth more than most used cars. “People should be arrested for charging this much for leather.”
“People are arrested for far less, in my experience.”
Emma cuts me a look. “That sounded suspicious.”
“Everything sounds suspicious to you.”
“Because you are suspicious.”
Fair.
I watch her move through the store carefully while pretending not to.
She notices details most people overlook.
Security placements. Employees watching me too attentively.
The subtle deference from management the second we entered.
She’s studying me, trying to figure out who I am here—Russ Smith or Ruslan Smirnov.
Trying to reconcile the man who threatened her with the man currently carrying Kate’s shopping bags while listening to a very serious rant about lip gloss colors.
I can practically see the confusion in her face every time Kate loops her arm through mine casually.
Good.
Confusion keeps people off balance.
Unfortunately, I am becoming unsettled myself. Because watching Emma with Kate feels dangerously natural.
Kate drags her toward a rack of winter coats twenty minutes later. “Emma, this one!”
Emma laughs softly while Kate shoves a cream-colored coat toward her chest dramatically. The sound catches my attention. Genuine laughter from Emma is something I haven’t heard yet, and I can’t seem to look away.
“It’s cute,” Emma admits. “But more suited for a blizzard.”
“Try it on.”
“I look terrible in white.”
“No, you don’t,” Kate argues.
Emma hesitates anyway. There it is again. That flicker of insecurity beneath the sarcasm and attitude. I noticed it first in Lord&Lion when those women laughed at her in the dressing room. Emma carries herself like someone accustomed to apologizing for taking up space.
She shouldn’t.
She disappears into the fitting room a moment later, while Kate wanders off toward the scarves. I stay near the mirrors scrolling through messages from Stepan about Colorado security arrangements until the curtain rustles softly again.
Then I look up.
Ah.
The coat falls perfectly against Emma’s curves, elegant and soft against dark curls spilling over her shoulders. She turns slightly toward the mirror, expression uncertain immediately.
“It’s probably too tight,” she murmurs, adjusting the belt awkwardly. “Or maybe the color washes me out. I don’t know.”
I set my phone down slowly. “No.”
Emma glances toward me. “No?” she repeats.
“You are beautiful.”
The words come out lower than intended. Honest. Dangerously honest. I shouldn’t be saying those words to her, even if they’re true.
Because this is just a transaction. I’m buying clothes for a woman that I plan on antagonizing my half-brother with. Riling him into making a mistake, dropping his facade, revealing who he truly is.
But I can’t stand seeing her insecure.
Heat climbs visibly into her cheeks while her fingers pause against the fabric. For one brief second, her features open in a way so vulnerable that it cracks something deep inside of me.
I realize with sudden clarity that nobody has been telling this woman she is beautiful nearly often enough.
Unacceptable.
Kate reappears before the moment stretches too far. “See?! I told you!”
Emma clears her throat and looks away from me toward the mirror again, visibly flustered now.
I lean back against the chair outside the fitting rooms while Kate continues piling clothing into Emma’s arms with terrifying efficiency.
Luckily, my little niece has good taste.
I only add one or two pieces into the mix, enjoying seeing the two of them laugh and critique.
Emma even starts to loosen up, showing off particularly ridiculous outfits or murmuring happily over ones she likes.
And somewhere between winter boots and evening dresses, another realization settles unpleasantly into place: Kate needs this.
Not Emma specifically, but a woman. A female presence beyond exhausted teachers and aging caretakers.
Kate hasn’t truly had a mother-figure in her life since she was taken from her.
And I’m not someone who can have a woman in my life, not one I can trust raising a girl who feels like a daughter to me.
No, the only woman who could truly love a man like me is too dangerous to bring into Kate’s life. And love is a myth.
But watching her chatter excitedly with Emma now, asking opinions about earrings, rolling her eyes dramatically over ugly sweaters, laughing openly, I feel something sharp twist in my chest.
Guilt.
Perhaps I’ve kept Kate so isolated from my world that I've also isolated her from things she needed.
Emma steps out again wearing a dark green dress this time, smoothing nervous hands down the fabric automatically. My body reacts instantly.
That’s problematic, especially so soon after what happened between us yesterday. Fast and hot, but I should be satiated.
I feel far from it, seeing her in this dress.
Kate gasps dramatically. “Oh my God.”
Emma looks toward me despite herself. I hold her gaze calmly. “Buy it.”
“That wasn’t an opinion.”
“It was a decision.”
She huffs softly. “I’m starting to realize you’re very opinionated about clothing.” She waits until Kate skips out into the store and adds, “You’re very bossy.”
“You are very argumentative.”
“Only because you keep acting like some terrifying Russian sugar daddy.”
I stare at Emma for one long second before stepping closer, trying not to put my hands on her body. On those curves wrapped in satin. “If I were your sugar daddy,” I murmur quietly enough that only she hears, “you would already own this entire store.”
Her breath catches.
Good.
The saleswoman hovering nearby suddenly looks deeply uncomfortable. Also good.
Emma glares at me afterward, but the flush lingering across her cheeks betrays her.
And as we continue through the store together, I find myself watching her less like a business arrangement and more like a problem I want to solve.