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I cannot use the pregnancy to get an invitation he hasn’t offered. I cannot stand here waiting for Galina to leave so I can ask whether I matter enough to take with him.

“When do you leave?” I ask.

“Tomorrow morning.”

I look toward the sitting room. From here, I can see Anya’s feet beneath the blanket.

“Got it.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll make the arrangements for you.”

He brought me here when I needed somewhere to stay, and he won’t leave me without money or a way home. He has always been generous.

“Elara, once I’ve spoken to⁠—”

I turn toward the stairs.

He keeps speaking, but I cannot follow what he’s saying anymore. I need to reach my room before he sees my face, before I ask him something I will hate myself for asking.

My suitcase is still in the wardrobe where Galina put it when I arrived.

I take it out and lay it open on the bed.

I put a hand on my belly. It’s time to move on too.

29

NIKOLAI

I open Elara’s contact and stare at her name, although she’s upstairs and I could go to her.

I want to ask her to come with us. I’ve already imagined her sitting beside Anya on the flight, helping her choose a movie, making her laugh when she starts worrying about the unfamiliar house waiting for us.

But Elara came here for a temporary job. She has a career she wanted to return to, friends, a life that existed before I started making decisions around what I wanted from her.

I can offer her a seat on a plane. I cannot make her feel that loving Anya obliges her to take it.

Except I haven’t offered. I’ve told myself so many reasonable things that I have managed to avoid asking the question.

I put the phone down.

Leaving Anya here is no longer a choice. I know that now, although I have allowed everyone else to believe I am still working from suspicion.

I lied to Elara. The man had talked before I left.

At first, he kept demanding a lawyer. By the end, he was begging me to believe him, repeating the same thing. That he was paid in cash, he didn’t know who he was dealing with. The one concrete evidence that he gave me was this—the number from which the call was made. It was the house number. Someone was conspiring to kill my daughter from inside my house.

Once he gave me the number, I stepped outside and had Sergei check it. I washed my hands while I waited, scrubbing at the blood caught around my nails.

Sergei called back before I finished.

The first call had come from my house.

Someone stood in my house and arranged to have my daughter killed.

Now I keep looking toward the door whenever I hear footsteps. I recognize almost every voice outside it, and that makes it worse. These are people I’ve eaten with, trusted, and left alone with her. Someone watched me bring Elara home injured and understood exactly why she was bleeding.

I think of Irina arriving before dawn. Her conversation with Viktor. His refusal to explain himself.