Chapter 28
Peighton
“Merry Christmas, Daddy,” I say softly, trying to sound cheerful. The call already feels fragile, like glass balanced on my palm.
“Merry Christmas, lil one. I loved the cigars you sent. Did you get my gift?”
I glance at the bracelet on my wrist, lifting it so the weak morning light catches the stones. The opal glimmers like trapped moonlight, framed by two small peridot gems. Our birthstones. It’s beautiful. It’s thoughtful. It almost makes me cry.
“I love it,” I say. “But it should have had Mom’s birthstone too.”
Silence, stiff and cold. Predictable.
He clears his throat. “Enjoy the gift, Peighton,” he says, voice tight, the way it always gets when she’s mentioned. “I have to go.”
And just like that, the call dies. I stare at the black screen a long moment, knowing I should be used to this by now, knowing it’s pathetic to expect warmth on a day like this.
Still, it stings. Christmas used to be messy and loud and full of my mother’s delicious cookies and warm cinnamon rolls.
Now it’s reduced to a stunted conversation and a hollow ache he refuses to acknowledge.
The door opens and Gustav steps inside, brushing snow from his shoulders.
He sees my expression before I can hide it.
I shove the phone under a pillow, not wanting to risk him confiscating it again.
His gaze lingers, searching, assessing. He doesn’t catch sight of the phone, yet he still sees too much.
“What happened?” he asks as he comes closer.
I force a smile. “Just missing my mom,” I say, and the lie tastes half-true. “She went into witness protection. Never saw her again.”
I don’t mention the cheating. Or the hit my father probably ordered after he found the love letters. Or the way Keira warned me never to speak those truths to Gustav, not unless I wanted him to see my mother in me. Not unless I wanted him to think infidelity is hereditary and kill me for it.
Gustav’s expression softens, rare and fleeting. He sits beside me on the edge of my bed and touches my knee with warm fingers. “I’m sorry, moyá devushka,” he murmurs. “The holidays are difficult when a parent is missing… or both.”
His sincerity steals a bit of the sting from my chest. He gets my pain having lost both parents.
“How did your parents die?” I ask, curious after what I heard in class.
“My father was murdered. Mother died of a broken heart.”
I nod slowly and draw in a breath to ask—
“Let’s speak of happier things. It is Christmas.” He reaches into his coat and hands me a small wrapped box. “For you.”
I perk up, surprised. Not long ago, I didn’t expect a Christmas morning with him. I didn’t expect him to care. I tear the paper off and find a sleek smartwatch nestled inside.
“It’s… beautiful,” I say, stunned.
“I had a bratva technician remove the speaker,” he explains, almost proud. “So no one can listen. No governments. No Councils.”
I lift a brow and smirk. “Did you put a tracker in it?”
“No,” he says.
He says it too fast. Too flat. I don’t believe him for a second. Still, I smile and slip it onto my wrist because it will make him happy.
When I reach under the tree, his brows pinch as I hand him the gift I wrapped days ago.
“For you,” I echo.
He stares at it like it’s a foreign object. “No one has ever given me a Christmas gift.”
My heart twists. What kind of childhood leaves a boy, now a man, without a single memory of Christmas joy? What kind of parents starve their son of warmth and tradition?
When he opens the package and pulls out the scarf. It’s woven in deep blue, white, and red. He freezes. The colors of the Russian flag. The stitching uneven in places, because I’m rusty, but made by my hands.
“I knitted it,” I say, suddenly shy. “My mom taught me. I wasn’t sure what to get you, but I know you’re proud to be Russian.”
The silence stretches, but it’s warm. His lips brush my temple, lingering longer than a simple thank-you kiss. His breath warms my hair. His arm pulls me into a side hug that feels more like being held than embraced.
“I hope one day you will be proud to be Russian too,” he says. “Even if only through marriage.”
I don’t argue, though the idea is comical. I can barely handle the language, let alone the culture and its oppression. I nod instead.
“Perhaps you should speak to Keira. She enjoys being a Russian wife.”
I strain to stifle a grimace and reply, “Yeah… I’ll talk to Keira.”
He smiles, faint but real. “I want to make you happy, Peighton. I want to give you whatever you want.”
Warmth courses through me, unexpected and dizzying. Then, his eye twitches and he looks away.
I tense and swallow hard, wondering if I just did something to trigger him.
His gaze sharpens in that sudden, unsettling way, as if something in his mind shifted to a different track.
“Do you have affections for anyone other than me?”
My breath halts. Keira’s warning in class slams into my memory, her voice subtly implying infidelity just from the slightest spark of male attention. It’s ridiculous, and I don’t know if she told Gustav anything. I don’t know if he suspects, but I can see the paranoia swirling in those gray eyes.
I drop to my knees quickly, instinctively, hoping to distract him before he spirals into such dangerous thoughts.
“I have another present for you,” I say, sliding my hands up his thighs, eager to anchor him in pleasure instead of madness.
He grips my wrists, stopping me. His voice is low and unsteady.
“You didn’t answer my question.”
My heart thuds. He knows something is off. Or thinks he does.
I look up at him slowly.
“No,” I whisper. “I don’t like anyone else.”
But as I say it, the image of Brutus’ soft smile flashes through my mind.
His dimpled cheeks. The bruises he gives me, yet always apologizes for like it’s painful for him, too.
The gentleness he shows me after in a world where gentleness is rare.
For a second, I wonder if there is something there, because Gustav was cold and cruel then.
But the moment is gone before I can name it.
I shake my head.
Gustav studies me, his eyes glinting with a mix of desire and suspicion, as if he can hear the heartbeat of the lie I didn’t mean to tell.