Page 153 of Sexting the Pakhan

I point at Ruslan. “Apparently he can’t leave because someone in his world tried to kill him and might follow him back here.”

Karina closes her eyes. “Great. Wonderful. Exactly the peaceful morning I ordered.”

Ruslan says, “I won’t let anyone near this place.”

I laugh once. “You were shot yesterday.”

“That doesn’t make me useless.”

“No,” I say. “It makes you a wounded criminal in my kitchen.”

Karina looks at me. “Zoya.”

“What?”

“Girls,” she says quietly.

I look toward the hallway. Mila and Nadia are in the living room, arguing in low voices about whether a blanket fort counts asarchitecture. They can’t hear every word, but I lower my voice anyway.

“I don’t trust you,” I tell Ruslan.

His eyes hold mine. “You shouldn’t.”

That stops me for half a second.

Karina looks between us. “Okay. That answer was either honest or manipulative, and I hate that I can’t tell.”

Ruslan doesn’t respond.

Karina checks her phone and sighs. “I have to go home and shower before work. I can come back later.”

I look at her. “You don’t have to.”

“I know,” she says. “That’s why I’m saying I can.”

Her eyes flick to Ruslan. She still looks like she wants to ask him a hundred questions and hit him with a frying pan after each answer.

Instead, she hugs me. “Call me if anything feels wrong,” she says into my ear.

“Everything feels wrong.”

“Then call me if it gets worse.”

I nod.

She pulls back and looks at the girls in the living room. “Tiny chaos queens, Aunt Karina is leaving.”

The girls wave her goodbye together.

At the door, Karina turns back once. Her eyes move from me to Ruslan and back again. “Don’t be noble,” she tells me.

“I’m not noble.”

“Good. Stay that way.”

Then she leaves. The apartment feels smaller after the door closes.

I check the lock twice.