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The firefight is brief but vicious. Concrete chips fly as bullets ricochet off warehouse walls. The air fills with cordite smoke and the sharp crack of gunfire. When the echo of the last shot fades, three bodies lie cooling on the warehouse floor.

I holster my weapon and move toward Pyotr, my hands surprisingly steady as I cut the ropes binding him to the chair. His eyes flutter open as I work, unfocused and glazed with pain.

"Anya?" he whispers, his voice barely audible.

"She's safe," I tell him, catching his weight as he slumps forward. "She's at home, waiting for you."

"The boy," he wheezes. " MyKoyla…"

"Safe, old man… They're both safe now."

The old man weighs nothing in my arms as I carry him toward the vehicles. Misha and Renat flank us, their weapons still drawn, eyes scanning for threats that don't come. The Zharov loyalists are finished, their blood seeping into the warehouse floor like spilled wine.

During the drive back to the estate, Pyotr drifts in and out of consciousness. I watch him in the rearview mirror, this broken man who gambled away his daughter's happiness, who sold his grandson's safety for a handful of rubles, and I feel something I haven't experienced in years.

Forgiveness.

Not because he deserves it, but because Anya loves him. Because family—even damaged, flawed, infuriating family—is everything. It's the only thing that matters when the world turns dark and cold.

The estate's iron gates swing open to welcome us home, and I see her immediately. Anya stands on the main balcony like a figure carved from marble, her white nightgown ghostly in the predawn light. She doesn't move as our convoy rolls up the circular drive, doesn't breathe, but I can feel her tension even from this distance.

When she realizes who we've brought home, her knees nearly buckle.

I climb out of the vehicle and gesture to Misha, who carefully lifts Pyotr from the back seat. The old man is conscious now,blinking in the early morning light like a man emerging from a long nightmare.

Nikolai appears in the front doorway, rubbing sleep from his eyes, drawn by the sound of the engines. When he sees his grandfather, he doesn't hesitate. He runs down the stone steps and throws his small arms around Pyotr's legs, his voice high and sweet in the morning air.

"Dedushka! You came back!"

That's when Pyotr breaks.

He collapses to his knees right there in the middle of the driveway, his arms wrapping around his grandson as sobs rack his beaten body. Years of shame and regret pour out of him like poison from a wound, and I watch as Anya flies down the steps to join them.

She doesn't speak, doesn't ask questions, just wraps her arms around both of them and holds on like she'll never let go. Her tears fall silently, soaking into her father's torn shirt, and I stand apart from this moment of grace like the devil watching angels dance.

When Pyotr finally looks up at me, his eyes are clear for the first time since I've known him.

"You saved me," he says, and the wonder in his voice cuts deeper than any blade.

"No." I crouch down so we're eye to eye, this man who nearly cost me everything, who I now understand is part of the foundation that holds my world together. "I saved my family."

The words hang in the air between us, heavy with meaning. Anya looks up at me with those dark eyes I've drowned in since the first moment I saw her, and I see something there I've been afraid to name.

Hope.

"Family is everything," I tell her, my voice rough with emotions I've kept locked away for too long. "It's the only thingthat matters when everything else falls apart. And you, Anya—you and Nikolai and even this stubborn old man—you're my family now."

I reach into my jacket and pull out a folded document, the papers I've been carrying for weeks like a talisman. "Pyotr's debts are paid in full. All of them. Every ruble he's ever owed to anyone in this city is wiped clean. He's under my protection now, which means he's untouchable."

Pyotr's eyes widen as he takes the papers with shaking hands. "I don't understand. Why would you?—"

"Because she loves you." I look at Anya as I speak, seeing the tears streaming down her face. "And I love her."

The admission hangs between us like a bridge finally built across an impossible chasm. Anya rises slowly, leaving her father and son kneeling in the driveway, and walks toward me. Each step brings her closer to the man I've become, the one who would burn down the world to keep her safe.

When she reaches me, she doesn't speak. She simply places her hand against my chest, over the heart I thought had died years ago.

"I love you too," she whispers, and the words hit me like absolution. "God help me, Rolan, but I love you."