I swallowed. Of course—who was I to reproach him for anything?
“I mean, you turned your back on a great ‘empire’”—I made quotation marks with the fingers of one hand, trying to emphasize my point—“for that woman, and you left her alone in the house? You took your children and left, just like that? Why would you do something like that?”
“I never said she was in the house when the panther attacked me. Anya was at her job and I had just arrived with the children, I—”
“But even so, you abandoned her!” I raised my voice, indignant.
“Even if that were the case, Anya had already abandoned me before Sasha was born.”
I froze at the answer. His eyes, a dark, flashing blue, were the first thing that took away my desire to keep protesting. His tone was harsh, growling, wounded, deep. His voice ma
