Page 89 of Cruel Submission

“I thought it might help him. She’s strong enough to see him now. I really think it could work.” There’s steel under her fear now. That part of Mirabel that refuses to bend. “Knowing she’s safe. That she’s home.”

“Or it could stop his heart.” Brutal honesty. The only kind I have. “All these years of believing she’s dead, then seeing her walk through his hospital door. That kind of shock kills people, Mirabel.”

“Or it gives them a reason to keep fighting.” Her voice hardens. “Arkady, I’m not asking permission. I’m telling you what’s happening.”

There it is. The woman who broke into my Secret Room. Who snooped through my life even when I warned her not to. Who falls asleep in my bed and carries my daughter and refuses to be controlled by men who think they know better.

The woman I can’t live without.

I drag my free hand through my hair, force my brain to work through the fear. She’s right. Peter McLeod deserves to see his daughters. Deserves to know the six-year nightmare is over. And stopping them because I’m afraid—that’s not protection. That’s just me being my father in different clothes.

But there’s no fucking way I’ll let them walk into that hospital unprotected.

“Text me before you go,” I say. “I’ll arrange protection.”

“Arkady—”

“Armed security. Close enough to intervene, far enough not to disturb. Non-negotiable.” I pick up the Glock I was cleaning, check the chamber one more time. Empty. Always empty. “I’m not taking chances.”

“Fine,” she says. “But they stay outside his room. I don’t want him scared.”

“Plainclothes. They’ll blend. Hospital staff, visitors. No one will notice them.” I set the gun down, grip the edge of the workbench. “But Mirabel—if anything feels wrong, even slightly wrong, you leave. Immediately.”

“I will.” Her voice drops, goes soft. Vulnerable. “Arkady? I’m scared. I’m so scared of losing him.”

The admission guts me.

I want to promise it’ll be okay. Want to swear I’ll fix everything, that nothing bad will happen while I’m alive to prevent it. But those are lies. I can’t control cancer. Can’t control her father’s heart. Can’t control the thousand ways this could go wrong.

“I know, zaychik.” I fight the roughness in my voice. “But you’re not doing this alone.”

The call ends.

I stand in my gun room surrounded by weapons I’ve stripped to their components, and I do what I do best—I prepare for war. Text my security team. Deploy men to the hospital. Build walls between the people I love and everything that wants to destroy them.

Then I return to the workbench. Finish reassembling the third Glock. Check the chamber. Twice. Three times. Put it back in the safe with the others.

If my father wants to make a move, let him come and face me himself.

I’ll be waiting.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Mirabel

I find her in the garden.

The late afternoon is cool—one of those evenings where the clouds are low and bruised, and the air smells of damp earth. But I barely notice the beauty of the day, because the news I have to share is wrenching my heart.

Debra’s sitting on the stone bench by the fountain, legs folded beneath her, her attention fixed on something in the hedgerow. A bird, maybe. Or nothing at all. Sometimes she goes somewhere I can’t follow, and I’ve learned not to chase her there.

She looks up when she hears me. There’s that alertness she carries now, the way her chin lifts, the way she examines my face before I’ve even opened my mouth. She’s learned to read people the way animals read danger. She knows something’s going on before I sit down.

“What’s wrong?” she says.

I sit beside her. The stone is cold through my leggings. My bump presses against the waistband, reminding me of everything I’m building while something else is crumbling.

“I need to talk to you about Dad.”