Page 111 of Blood & Snow
"Can't what?"
"Can't tell you."
The admission tears from my throat.
"I wish I could, but I can't."
Irina pulls back and rubs her forehead, then pinches the bridge of her nose.
"Are you in trouble?"
Yes.
More trouble than you could imagine, I think.
"No."
"Are you hurt?"
Only in ways that don't show.
"No."
"Are you…" She pauses, searching for words.
"Are you selling yourself?"
The whispered shocked way she says it slices my heart open.
I turn to face her, seeing my own features reflected in her expression—the same dark hair, the same stubborn jawline that marks us as sisters.
Her worried expression looks likeMamochka'sdays before she died.
"How can you ask me that?"
"Because you disappear every night. You come home exhausted, wearing clothes that cost more than anyone should spend. You won't show me pay stubs or explain where any of this comes from."
She gestures at the tree, the gifts, the transformed apartment.
"What else am I supposed to think?"
Tears burn behind my eyes, but I refuse to let them fall. Irina deserves the truth, deserves to know her sister isn't selling her body for money.
But the truth would destroy everything—her safety, the children's innocence, the careful lies that keep us all breathing.
"I'm not a prostitute," I whisper.
"Then what are you?"
The silence between us is laden with everything I cannot say.
Through the walls, I hear Anya and Mikhail laughing in the bathroom, their joy unmarked by adult complications.
"I love them," I say finally.
"Everything I do is for them."
"That's not an answer."
