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I shook my head and turned in his arms, pressing my palms against the warmth of his chest. “I’m just… happy,” I said with a soft smile. But the crease between his brows only deepened,worry still etched on his face. I lifted my fingers to smooth it away.

“Stop looking at me like that. I promise, I’m okay,” I insisted. “Everything is just so perfect. After so long… I never thought I’d feel happiness like this. Thank you,amoremio,” I whispered, pressing my lips to his jaw.

“No,Solnychko. Thank you,” he murmured. “For stepping into my life, for bringing your warmth into my cold, empty world. Before you, everything was dark, meaningless. And my relationship with the boys…” He exhaled sharply, as if remembering something painful, before holding me even closer, as if afraid I might slip away.

“For nearly a year, they barely spoke to me, they avoided me. But since you arrived, since you stayed… everything changed, Selina. Everything.”

I bit my lip, debating whether to ask the question that had been haunting me since I first met them. But I didn’t want there to be any secrets between us. No doubts, no unspoken words. I needed to understand.

So I took a deep breath and finally asked, “Why ? Why were they avoiding you, Nikolai ?”

His jaw tightened instantly, and regret gripped me like a vice. “I… Forget it. I shouldn’t have—”

He cut me off by pressing his thumb against my lips, silencing me with a gentle touch. “No, Selina,” he said firmly. “You have every right to ask. You can ask me anything. I want us to build something real, something strong and unshakable.”

I nodded slowly, my heart pounding.

“I was married thirteen years ago,” he began, his voice steady, but his gaze locked onto mine. “An arranged marriage.”

My stomach twisted as he continued, “we married to strengthen the alliance between our families. Her name was Irina. She was quiet, reserved… No, more than that. She was completely closed off. She struggled to connect with people—even with Elif and my brothers—despite living under the same roof. At first, I thought it was normal—she barely knew us, and we’re not exactly easy to approach. And we were still young.”

He paused, his expression darkening, “but when Mikhail was born, during our second year of marriage… nothing changed. It got worse. She refused to nurse him, refused to even see him—not even after giving birth. I was the first to hold him in my arms. He was… he was perfect.”

My heart clenched at the tenderness in his voice, but at the same time, I wanted to scream. My poor Mikhail… he had never even felt his mother’s warmth after birth. He had been abandoned before he even had a chance.

“Elif tried to reassure me. She said some women struggle after childbirth, that I needed to give it time, that Irina would come around… but she never did. She refused to acknowledge him, refused to speak to him, for an entire year.”

I gasped. A whole year ? I couldn’t imagine going even a single day without holding Rafael when he was a baby.

“And even after that, she remained distant. Cold. But it wasn’t out of cruelty, Selina. Something inside her was already broken. And I know her mother, Agata, had something to do with it.”

“Her own mother ?” I asked, shocked.

He nodded grimly.

“But the woman who was with her the other day… Nina? That’s her granddaughter, isn’t she ? She seemed… normal ?”

“Nina ?” He sighed. “Yes. She’s Irina’s niece. But she’s different. She’s shy, introverted… but not broken. Not like Irina. Butsometimes, when I look into her eyes, I see cracks forming. Like she’s barely holding on.”

A chill ran down my spine. I thought of the young woman with her delicate features, the way she had tried to calm her mother, the exhaustion in her voice.

She was on the verge of breaking. Like so many women before her. Like me. Like I almost had—before Rafael.

“We have to help her, Nikolai,” I said suddenly, sitting up so fast I almost fell off the bed. “We can—we can take her away. She can hide here. Or we can grab her grandmother and make her stop—”

I barely had time to react before I found myself pinned to the bed beneath him, his lips hovering just above mine.

“Oh, my sweet Selina,” he murmured, brushing a kiss against the tip of my nose. “I should have known… You’ve spent too much time around us. You’re starting to think like us.”

I scowled and shoved at his chest. “I’m serious, Nikolai ! We can’t leave Nina to suffer !”

He sighed, sitting up at the edge of the bed. And for a moment, I let myself get distracted by his nearly bare body, clad only in his boxer briefs.

Focus, Selina. Focus.

“I know,Solnychko. We’ve tried. Elif spoke to her, but Nina refused to leave. I thought she was scared, that her parents were threatening her. So I went with Grigori… but she still refused. She chose to stay.”

He gave me a helpless look, and my heart sank. I knew there were other ways to keep someone trapped. I knew that better than anyone.