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The rage I feel at even the hypothetical scenario burns hot in my chest. If someone hurt Polina that way…

Don’t go there, Stella.

Just don’t.

My heart tightens with something inexplicable just thinking about it.

I look down at her again, now nursing contentedly, unaware of the epiphany her existence has triggered. In this moment, I can understand Aleksei’s decade-long quest for vengeance. Not justify it, perhaps, but understand it in a visceral, maternal way I couldn’t have before becoming a mother myself.

My father made a terrible mistake. A mistake that permanently altered a child’s life. He fled rather than face consequences, hiding behind a new name in a new country. And Aleksei, for all his criminal activities and moral ambiguity, was simply a father seeking justice for his son.

The simplicity of this truth doesn’t erase the complexity of my feelings. My father is still my father— the man whotaught me to ride a bike, who encouraged my interest in science, who loved me imperfectly but genuinely. My mother is still my mother— gentle, supportive, ultimately destroyed by circumstances beyond her control.

And Aleksei is still the man who facilitated my father’s death, who inadvertently caused my mother’s suicide, who kept these truths from me until confronted.

Yet he’s also the man who cradles Polina with impossible gentleness. Who funds experimental treatments for his disabled son. Who has, in his own way, tried to create a family from the wreckage of the past.

“Why does life have to be so complicated?” I murmur to my oblivious child.

Polina finishes nursing, sated on milk and drowsy. I shift her to my shoulder, patting her back gently until she releases a milky burp. Life continuing its simple rhythms despite all the earth-shattering truths I’ve learned.

As she drifts to sleep against my shoulder, my thoughts turn to Nick. My brother, who idolized our father even more than I did. Who has always been so prone to addiction. Who would never, ever understand what I now know.

I reach for my phone, finger hovering over his contact information. What would I even say?Hey Nick, turns out Dad was drunk during a delivery and permanently disabled a baby, and that baby’s father is now my daughter’s father too. Oh, and Dad’s “accident” wasn’t an accident after all.

He would never believe me. Or worse, he would, and it would destroy what little stability he’s managed to find. And he would judge me— rightfully— for continuing any relationship with the man responsible for our father’s death.

I set the phone down without calling. Some truths are too heavy to share.

Carefully, I place Polina in her bassinet, watching her sleep for long moments. Her perfect little hands. Her chest rising and falling with each breath. Her absolute vulnerability and dependence.

How can I possibly understand her father? A man battling his own demons, scarred by a brute who hurt his children instead of protecting them. Is it any wonder that Aleksei would be so driven to be a different kind of parent? A defender instead of an abuser?

Now, looking at Polina, imagining her injured through negligence, I feel the same rage burning in my chest that must have consumed Aleksei.

Is this Stockholm Syndrome? Or is it simply that love doesn’t follow moral calculations?

The truth changes everything and nothing at once. My father was flawed. My mother was desperate. Aleksei was vengeful. And yet here we are, creating a new life together.

I have no neat resolution, no clear path forward. Only the understanding that the black-and-white morality I once believed in has given way to shades of gray I never imagined existed.

What I do know, with absolute certainty, is that I will protect Polina with everything I have. That I understand Aleksei’s fierce paternal love, even as I struggle with his methods of expressing it. That I can’t simply walk away from this complicated, painful connection between our families.

For better or worse, our paths were intertwined long before we met.

And now, with Polina binding us together, they always will be.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Aleksei

It’s been hours since Stella left my room, and since then, there’s been no word from her.

So I do what I always do and bury myself in work.

The contracts arrive by secure courier at precisely 9:00 a.m. Five of them, each bearing the Pentagon’s official seal, each requiring my signature. I flip through the pages, scanning the terms. The numbers are good— better than before Novikov interfered.

James Whitmore sits across from my desk, his expensive suit unable to hide the slight paunch of middle age. His eyes dart occasionally to the security monitors on the wall behind me, betraying his discomfort at being in my home.