Page 48 of Gilded Shackles
"It's a school for children like us..." He sticks out his tongue in concentration.
"Children like you?"
"Yeah. It's mostly kids of people my father is friends with. Dad calls it co-op."
My hands freeze. I don't want to ask, not knowing how to talk about the Bratva around an eight-year-old. But that's exactly what he just described. A school for Bratva children.
"School is boring, but the special classes are fun," he adds.
"Special classes?" I wonder if I even want to know.
"Yeah. Like how to tell if someone's following you, or codes, or how to remember faces. Papa says it's important."
Kid Spy School. What the hell have I married into?
"Do you like it?" I ask carefully.
He thinks about it, face serious. "Some parts. But the other kids all have moms and dads that talk about the special classes. They already know stuff."
"And you don't?"
"I know some things. But Papa doesn't talk about that at home. He says home is for being normal."
I almost laugh. Normal. Right. Nothing screams normal like a mansion with armed guards and children learning counterintelligence.
"Well," I say, helping him attach the tiny gripper to the robot's arm, "I think that makes you lucky. You get to be a regular kid and a super-smart one."
He brightens. "Really?"
"Absolutely. Look at this robot we're building. I bet none of those other kids could do this."
"Maybe," he admits. A small smile forming.
"Case closed." I high-five him. "You're obviously the genius of the group."
We finish assembling the robot faster than either of us expected. Both of us lean in at the same time as Pasha hits the power button.
The little machine hums to life. Its arm lifts, reaches cleanly for the small ball we placed in front of it.
"It works!" Pasha crows, bouncing on his knees. "Look, Elle, it works!"
His joy is so infectious I find myself laughing too, genuinely delighted by this tiny mechanical victory.
"You're going to be an amazing engineer someday," I tell him. And mean it.
12
ELLE
That afternoon, I'm halfway through a toe-curling romance I stole from the library downstairs, genuinely surprised to find Nikolai had this in his collection, when Pasha's face pops into the doorway of the living room like a very polite jump scare.
I immediately slam the paperback shut and shove it behind the cushions before the kid sees the cover and can't burn it from his retinas.
"Elle," he says, in that secret-whisper voice kids get when they're about to ask you something monumental but it's always anticlimactic. "Can I come in?"
I pat the space beside me. "You never have to ask. This is your house, bud."
He scurries in, socks sliding on the wood floor, and plops down next to me. My cat walks in behind him like a furry shadow. Sir Isaac stretches across my legs, decides he likes this lap, and goes full starfish.
