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My heart stumbled.

Before I could answer, before I could put that feeling anywhere, he stepped behind me. I didn’t move, didn’t breathe. He lifted the necklace from the box and fastened it around my neck with practiced hands.

The ruby settled over my collarbones, and I swallowed hard. He brushed my hair over one shoulder, and then leaned in close, his breath warm against the shell of my ear.

“I’m not giving this to Sloane Kingsley,” he murmured. “I’m giving it tomy future wife.”

My heart stuttered in my chest.

The chain was delicate, but it felt heavier than it looked—weighted by history, memories, and untold amounts of grief. Ireached up and touched the ruby gently, brushing the stone like I might wake something inside it. Inside me.

It was personal, intimate,like a piece of him he wasn’t supposed to give away, but did anyway.

I sat still in the quiet space, too stunned to speak. For the first time since he took me, I didn’t feel like a prisoner. That might be more dangerous than all the rules and cameras in this place combined.

He returned to the stove without a word, stirring something absentmindedly, and I watch him in silence. He moved with a kind of ease I didn’t expect: shoulders relaxed, mouth softened, like the kitchen was one of the only places he let the weight of the world slide off him.

“Where did you learn how to cook?” I asked.

He glanced at me, and the corner of his mouth lifted into that slow, crooked smile that made my stomach flutter.

“Mama made sure the Morozov boys could cook, but I was the best one in the house,” he said with a wink.

Something in his tone tugged at me. I toyed with the edge of the napkin in front of me, eyes flicking to him, then brought my fingers up to the ruby at my throat.

“What was she like?” I asked softly. “Your mother.”

He paused—just for a moment—but it was enough to tell me I’d touched something that delved deep into his heart.

Then he let out a quiet breath and turned the stove off.

“She was… the loudest person I’ve ever known,” he said, a laugh slipping into his voice. “I don’t mean in volume, I mean in spirit.She walked into a room and everyone looked. She had this laugh, Sloane. Big and messy. She never cared if it made people stare. She was one of the most confident people I’ve ever known.”

I smiled despite myself. It’s impossiblenotto picture it.

“She made us believe we were kings,” he continued, leaning back against the counter, arms folded. “Even when we were dirt-poor and eating boiled potatoes three nights a week. She’d say, ‘We’re Morozovs; we don’t bow, werise.’”

I looked down at the counter, the ball in my throat difficult to swallow around.

He rubbed a hand over his jaw, that warm, booming laugh echoing faintly in his words now.

“She used to line up our shoes before school and make us step over them three times. Said it was for luck. I still do it. Even before a fight.”

“You’re superstitious?” I asked, surprised.

He smirked. “Very. Same routine every time. Left glove first. Then my right. Step into the ring with my left foot. Touch my necklace.”

I blinked. “You have a necklace?”

He nodded and reached beneath his shirt to pull out a small chain with a silver Orthodox cross. “This was hers. She gave it to me before my first real fight. I haven’t taken it off since.”

I didn’t know what to say to that, because suddenly, this man who pressed me down and made me beg for mercy while he spanked my bare ass, who’d promised to make me his wife whether I wanted it or not… didn’t seem like a monster.

He seemed like a boy who lost his mother in a war he didn’t start. A man who rebuilt his life with fire in his blood and family on his back. A protector. A provider. The kind of man who gave away his mother’s necklace because he knew what it meant to carry something close to your heart.

And the worst part?

I felt something dangerous creeping in: the temptation not to run.