Page 79 of Pack Baby for the Bratva
"I offered to cover for a few weeks while she looked after him. Then he passed, and she wanted to move to Aberdeen to be near her daughter, but she couldn't bear to close the shop." I shrugged. "She gave me the lease. The Highland Bean was hers, really. I just... kept it warm."
"Bullshit," Mary said.
"Excuse me?"
"You built a life. From nothing. On your own. That's not keeping something warm, that's building a fire."
I looked at her. She was fierce and young and still so breakable, and she'd been putting flowers on an empty grave because nobody had told her the body wasn't in it.
"I survived," I said. "And then, very slowly, I started living. There's a difference."
"Which is?"
"Survival is counting down. Living is—" I stopped. Looked at Mac, at his ridiculous hair and his tiny fist and the way he loved being held. "Living is counting up."
Mary followed my gaze. "He's really something."
"He's a menace. Gets it from his father."
"Which one?"
"All of them, probably."
Across the terrace, Gregor dropped a piece of grilled fish onto the flagstones, swore loudly in Russian, and then looked around to see who'd noticed.
The villa chef closed his eyes.
The security man with the pineapple adjusted his tray.
Mary laughed. It was bright, reckless, the laugh I remembered from a bedroom in Dublin with glitter-blue toenails and stupid jokes and the door locked against our father's temper.
When she caught her breath, she looked back at me. "Okay. You're running a coffee shop in Scotland. Hiding from the Irish mob. Living a quiet, peaceful life." Her eyes narrowed. "So how the hell did you end up with the scariest men in the Russian Bratva?"
The ocean crashed below. Somewhere behind me, I heard Artem's voice, low and steady, still on a call about whatever empire business didn't stop for honeymoons. Gregor had rescued his fish and was gesturing at it with a spatula.
The scent of caramel and champagne drifted past on the breeze.
"Prague," I said.
Mary sat up. "What were you doing in Prague?"
I took a slow breath.
"That," I said, "is a very long story involving a very bad decision, a very expensive dress I didn't pay for, and a hotel room I definitely shouldn't have been in."
Mary propped herself on one elbow, sunscreen forgotten. "Tell me."
"Now?"
"You just told me the three-year summary in two minutes. I want the good bit."
"It's not good. It's complicated."
"Complicated is my favourite."
Fergus made a soft sound in his sleep. I reached over and rested a hand on his back, feeling the tiny rhythm of his breathing.
"Fine," I said. "But you're not allowed to judge me until the end."
