Page 17 of SINS & Riley
I dream of Tuscany like I’ve already been there.
Maybe someday.
If I survive the wrath of Zver.
There’s a knock at the door, but no pause for permission.
Not that anyone needs it.
Evil master’s lair. Evil master’s rules.
But usually, there’s at least the courtesy of a wait.
Not today.
The door blasts open, and?—
A five-year-old rockets through first, plastic sword raised high. “Help me!” he shouts, charging across the rug like a pint-sized knight.
“Huh?” I blink as he nearly smacks my shin.
A second later his sister barrels in after him, braids flying, clutching a stuffed axolotl to her chest, its frilly pink gills bouncing with every step. “You can’t escape, Misha!” she squeals, laughter spilling into every corner of the room.
Katya and Misha.
Their Babushka calls them trouble.
I call them fellow inmates.
Dominic just calls them his.
They circle the rug, shrieking, kids, swords, and a stuffed axolotl locked in some kind of epic showdown.
I close my book I’ve been reading, trying not to smile, but my chest squeezes anyway.
Once upon a time, Kennedy and I were like this, spinning entire worlds out of nothing, fighting wars with plastic swords and cardboard shields.
Life has a way of torching childhood castles. And I’ll do anything—anything—to keep theirs standing.
Misha swings wide, his plastic sword whistling too close to the mantel. My pulse spikes. I lunge without thinking, steadying Katya with one hand and snatching the vase with the other before it shatters against the hearth.
“Careful,” I murmur.
She beams up at me, gap-toothed. “Thanks, Auntie Riley.”
The word sucker-punches me.
Auntie.
Nobody calls me that.
Nobody should. And yet it sinks deep, a quiet blade slipping under my ribs, to a place behind the walls of my heart.
Katya plops onto the rug beside me, hugging her axolotl like it’s armor. Her little brow furrows.
“Riley…what’s a bookshop like?”
The question nearly undoes me.
