Page 101 of Savage Don

But I don’t cry. I don’t do that anymore.

I made that promise to myself long ago, somewhere between Evan raising his voice in my kitchen and me realizing tears only made him feel more powerful. I didn’t cry when he blocked the door and told me no one else would put up with me. I didn’t cry when he twisted my wrist and then acted offended because I flinched. I didn’t even cry after I got hit by a car, which feels like it should have earned me some kind of emotional achievement badge.

So, I am not going to cry because Nikolai Volkov snapped at me.

I stand outside the library for a few seconds, breathing through it, until my face feels normal enough to take back inside.

Then I open the door.

Anya looks up immediately from the table.

She has been pretending to work on the worksheet I left her with, but the pencil has not moved since I stepped out. Her eyes go straight to my face, too sharp for eight years old, too hopeful for me to handle comfortably right now.

“Well?” she asks.

I close the door behind me. My chest aches all over again. “I talked to him.”

“And?”

I sit down across from her. She already knows. I can tell by the way her shoulders drop before I say a word.

“He said no.”

Anya stares at the worksheet. For a second, she says nothing. Then she nods once, like she is trying very hard to be grown up about it. “Okay.”

That’s worse than arguing.

I would rather have the small attorney back. I would rather have her list twelve reasons why her father is wrong and possibly guilty of crimes against edible glitter. Instead, she sits there quietly, accepting disappointment like she has been practicing.

I hate it.

“He’s worried,” I say gently.

“He’s always worried.”

“I know.”

“He says I can see my friends here, but he never wants people here.”

“I know that too.”

She looks at me then, and her eyes are too bright. “Did you tell him I’m lonely?”

My heart sinks. “Yes.”

“And he still said no.”

I reach across the table and take her hand. Her fingers are small and warm in mine. “I’m sorry.”

She squeezes my hand once, then pulls away and looks down again. “It’s fine.”

No, it isn’t. Nothing about this is fine.

I look toward the windows, out at the guarded lawn, the clipped hedges, the polished stone paths leading to gates she cannot walk through without permission. It occurs to me then with perfect clarity that Anya cannot leave this house unless Nikolai allows it. Not really. Not with the guards, the drivers, the routines, the constant watching.

Neither can I, probably. Not if I tried in any meaningful way.

The thought should scare me more than it does. Maybe it will later. Right now, all I can see is Anya sitting across from me, trying not to look like a child who has just been told no again.