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But my home is, always has been, and always will be wherever the three of them are.

Flora sits on the couch, her arms crossed over her chest, her dark brows knitted together so tightly I’m worried she’ll end up with a permanent crease between her brows.

“You could have fucking called,” she says after a few tense moments of silence.

Madd, Brix, and Kato are lingering in the kitchen while the two of us sit on the patio. I know they’re trying to give us some privacy – or at least pretending to give us privacy – but don’t want to be out of sight in case I need them.

Not to mention Flora’s guards are standing just inside the door where they can see her. It was tense when they’d shown up with my best friend, but Kato finally relented and allowed the Russian guards into the house to make me happy.

"I couldn’t,” I say. I told her everything. Told her about what happened that night, starting with finding out I was pregnant to almost dying.

I left out the part about Viktor, though. Not because I don’t trust her, but I don’t want the risk of anyone catching a whisper of that information until Kato is able to get Viktor safely away from my father.

“You haven’t even called your parents?”

“Hell no. Wait…you thought I ran off, too, right?”

She nods, that scowl still on her face.

“Do you know about my mom? Does she think I ran off? Or did my father tell her the truth?”

She throws her hands into the air. “How the hell should I know? If I was told you ran off, why would I know whether he told your mom the truth or not? Not like I hang out around your house anymore.”

“It’s not my house,” I say and blink back tears.

I’m not sure what would hurt worse, finding out my mom thought I ran off and never bothered looking for me, or learning she knew I was dead and didn’t grieve for me.

Not that we were ever close.

I was the same as any other child I knew born into this life – an heir, someone to either carry the torch after my father died or to bring more little Russian babies into the world to lead the local Bratva.

Still. She’s my mom. Shouldn’t she have demanded my dad look for me? Shouldn’t she have demanded she talk to me, hear with her own ears that I left willingly?

But if she thought I was dead…didshe grieve my death? That part is eating at me, and I won’t have any answers until we officially make my reappearance public.

Flora is still frowning, barely meeting my eyes. But at least she hasn’t left yet. She’s willing to hear me out. We’ve been friends our whole lives since her father is the Pakhan.

I need to close this rift between us. I need to rebuild the friendship I missed nearly as much as I missed my men.

“How’s your mom?” I ask, changing the subject in hopes of getting her to open up.

The crease between her brows smooths and deep sorrow fills her dark brown eyes. “Mom was killed two years ago.”

“Shit, Flora. I’m so sorry. I wish I’d known –”

I reach for her hand, but she pulls away from me. “What? You would have come out of hiding and rushed to hug me?”

“Flora. Seriously. I’m trying to be super cool and calm here and trying to be comforting about your mom’s death, but can you really not understand why I stayed away? Why I stayed hidden? I would be dead.Theywould be dead,” I say, throwing my arm toward the glass door.

Brix is staring directly at me, his dark brows pulled together as tightly as Flora’s were moments ago.

“I know you hate them. You would have been fine with them dead. Fine. Whatever. But I love them. And what aboutme, you asshole? Would you have been fine with carrying my casket?”

She scoffs. “You and I both know there wouldn’t have been a casket.”

No. There wouldn’t have been. Because Viktor was supposed to take me out into the woods, kill me, and leave me there. Either way, no one would have ever seen me again.

And if my men hadn’t tracked me down, it might have stayed that way.