Page 225 of Sexting His Assistant

I close my eyes.

This is how men make fatal mistakes.

Not because they don’t see the danger.

Because they see it and want anyway.

That night, I don’t go to my own room for more than an hour.

I sit in the study, read reports without absorbing them, speak to Pavel twice, receive no meaningful update on Misha, and send Sergei to sleep only after he refuses three times and my mother appears in the doorway with an expression that makes him leave immediately.

My mother doesn’t ask whether I’m all right.

She knows the answer.

“She will feel strange here.”

I say, “I know.”

“Don’t make the house feel like a cage.”

I look at her. “I’m trying.”

She shakes her head. “Try better.”

Then she leaves, because apparently everyone in this house has decided to raise me tonight.

Near midnight, I go to check on Nina.

The hallway outside her room is dim. One guard is stationed near the far staircase, out of sight from her door because I remembered my mother’s warning about cages. The house is quiet. Even the old floorboards seem to understand that Nina needs sleep.

I knock softly. No answer.

I wait. Then I hear movement inside.

Nina says, “Come in.”

I open the door.

She’s sitting up in bed, hair messy now, one of my mother’s sweaters wrapped around her shoulders, the bedside lamp on low. Her phone lies face down beside her. The untouched tea has gone cold.

I say, “You should be sleeping.”

Nina says, “That was the plan.”

I step inside and close the door behind me. “Headache?”

“A little.”

“Dizzy?”

Nina says, “No.”

“Nausea?”

Nina gives me a tired look. “Are you Mirov now?”

She snorts.