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Our daughter shifts slightly in her sleep, mewling almost as she smiles contently, and my heart throbs in my chest.
I swear, every time I look at her, something inside me breaks and rebuilds itself all over again.
Nikolai exhales a slow breath, his shoulders losing some tension.
I see it—the quiet shift in him—the realisation of it all.
For the first time in our lives, we aren’t just soldiers, training to become leaders of the Bratva.
We are fathers.
Chiara must see it too, because she lifts her head, her tired eyes meeting Nikolai’s before they move to mine.
“Are you both okay?”
She asks us softly.
I breathe out a small laugh, dragging a hand through my hair.
“I’m nowhere near that.”
Nikolai chuckles under his breath, but there’s something raw in his eyes too, something that mirrors exactly what I’m feeling.
“I don’t think we’ll ever be okay again.” He admits. “But that doesn’t matter as long as we have you both by our sides.”
Chiara smiles sleepily, her eyes still full of so much love and exhaustion, and fuck, I love her so much it physically hurts.
She leans backwards against the chair, sighing heavily.
“We did good.”
Nikolai makes a low, approving sound, his hand protective over Anastasia’s small form.
“Yeah, darling, we did.”
I watch my family; Chiara sitting in the chair, our small daughter nestled against her body, and Nikolai kneeling beside them both.
I could stay here like this forever with my family, staying with the only people who have ever truly mattered.
And I know that deep in my bones, this is it.
This is ours.
Always.
Forever.
Chapter Twenty Four
Isaak
The house is quieter than usual.
It’s not the kind of silence that comes before war, the tension-laced quiet, or the quiet that’s present as you wait for a kill.
No.
This is different.