Page 119 of Maksym

The office seemed smaller without his image and larger with what he had left behind.

For several seconds, no one spoke.

Bohdan pushed away from the desk.

“Father and Devon have already left the club,” he said. “They are en route to the estate.”

I nodded.

“Nikolay and Maddie will follow shortly.”

“Good.”

His eyes shifted briefly toward Grace. “Lucia and Ryder have just arrived.”

Grace went still.

Not from recognition of the names alone. I had briefed her. She knew Lucia was my sister, my father’s daughter. She knew Ryder was her mate, the hybrid wolf-vampire doctor. But knowledge at a table in Vegas was different from bodies waiting in the same house. Names had been manageable when they were future problems. Now they had arrived.

My family gathered like weather.

Father. Devon. Nikolay. Maddie. Lucia. Ryder. Bohdan soon behind us. Taras somewhere in the building, already aware of half this before anyone told him and irritated by the other half on principle.

Grace’s pulse rose. She kept her chin up. The courage of that small motion did something violent to me.

Bohdan saw it too. His face softened by the narrowest degree. “Lucia is unlikely to overwhelm you intentionally,” he said. “Ryder may ask if you have eaten, slept, fed, healed properly, or considered sitting down before you fall down. He is a physician. They become tedious when attached to principles.”

Grace blinked.

Then, unexpectedly, she said, “I used to work with federal agents. I know tedious men with principles.”

“Then you are prepared.”

“Doubtful.”

“Preparation is often exaggerated.”

I looked at Bohdan. “You are not helping.”

“I rarely claim to.”

I stepped toward the door. “We leave now.”

Bohdan nodded. “I will be behind you on the way home. I need ten minutes with floor management and Amelia.”

“Take five.”

His brows lifted. “How generous.”

“You asked for ten because you wanted seven.”

“I asked for ten because Father married a fallen angel and now all of you have become emotionally perceptive at inconvenient times.”

I saw a slight smirk on Grace’s face and a small nod of her head as I opened the office door.

The privacy ward released us with a faint static brush over my skin. She moved beside me without prompting.

Her hands hung loose at her sides.