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The estate at dusk looks nothing like the place I first stumbled into a year ago.

Warm lights glow in every window, throwing soft amber shapes onto the freshly trimmed lawns and winding stone paths.

The gardens bloom again, the roses wild and heavy with color, climbing the trellises like they were never broken, never trampled.

In the distance, I hear faint laughter from the guards posted at the front gates—relaxed, unguarded in a way that would’ve been unthinkable once.

The place feels lived in now. Alive. A sanctuary, not a fortress.

One year. It’s been one year since Matías Ortega bled out on cracked concrete, since the war that had been coming for a decade ended not with a roar, but with a silence so profound it still echoes in my bones.

My father was freed two months after Matías’s death.

It wasn’t an easy decision. Andrei could’ve refused.

Could’ve buried him in some forgotten cell the same way Matías tried to bury Maxim.

When the evidence came—the footage, the testimonies Maxim unearthed—there was no denying the truth anymore.

Matías had orchestrated everything. Pulled the strings.

My father had been a pawn. A willing one, yes—but a pawn all the same.

Andrei allowed his release not out of forgiveness.

He still looks at my father like a man weighing a loaded gun. No, he allowed it because it was over.

Dragging the past behind us like a rotting corpse would only slow the future he’s trying to build.

Finality. A clean break, if such a thing exists.

The past still lingers, of course. It always will. It’s stitched into the walls, into the scars across Andrei’s body, into the way Maxim sometimes stares too long at the river when he thinks no one is watching.

It doesn’t dictate every breath anymore. It doesn’t own us.

Maxim… Maxim surprised everyone.

Instead of picking up a gun and slotting back into the Bratva like a missing piece, he carved a new space for himself.

An ambassador, not a soldier.

He’s the face we send to broker alliances now, the name whispered in circles where diplomacy holds more weight than brute force. He’s still deadly, still sharp as broken glass when he needs to be—but he wields his influence like a scalpel instead of a hammer.

And under the three of us, the Bratva thrives.

I stayed.

In those first fragile weeks after the dust settled, I expected to run.

I thought I would wake up one morning and find the strength to walk away—to slip out through the gilded gates, back into the world that no longer fit me.

Back into a life where blood wasn’t a constant whisper beneath the surface.

That morning never came.

Instead, I carved out a space here. Beside Andrei, not beneath him. Learning the rules of this world—the old alliances, the endless betrayals, the silent codes that dictate life and death—and molding them into something I could live with.

I’m not part of every operation. I don’t need to be.

I don’t sit at the table when territory lines are drawn in blood, or when vengeance demands a price in bodies.

I know enough. Enough that when I walk through the estate now, men nod to me with a quiet respect that once would’ve seemed impossible. Not deference. Not fear.

Recognition. They know I didn’t break. They know who I am to Andrei.

Maybe more importantly—who I am to myself.

Life here isn’t the life I once imagined, but it’s a life I’ve made mine. Mornings are my favorite.

The quiet ones when the world outside the gates still sleeps, and I find Andrei in the study, half dressed, reading the papers with a glass of black coffee in his hand.

Sometimes he barely looks up when I slip into the room, but he always shifts his body just slightly—making space for me without needing to ask.

Sometimes we sit in silence.

Sometimes he reads headlines aloud, voice low and rough from sleep, while I pretend not to be amused at how much he cares about things he pretends to disdain.

Other days are busier—planning charity events, smoothing out the rough edges of Bratva business with a public face that smiles and raises money for children’s hospitals and art museums. Cover for the real work. Armor woven from silk and champagne.

I’ve become good at it. Better than I thought I could be.

Sometimes—rare, precious nights—I find myself laughing over dinner with Maxim, our conversations wandering into absurdity no one else would dare speak aloud. The way only people touched by the same violence can laugh—sharp and bright and necessary.

It’s strange, how full the days can feel.

How ordinary.

***

Andrei

The night is cool, the air heavy with the scent of rain and earth.

I lean against the doorway of the balcony, half shrouded in shadow, watching her.

Alina stands at the railing, her back to me, arms folded loosely atop the stone. Her hair stirs with the breeze, strands catching the moonlight, turning to fire and silk. She’s barefoot, wearing one of my shirts, the hem brushing the tops of her thighs, careless and perfect and mine.

She hums quietly under her breath—nothing recognizable. Just a sound. A peace I still don’t know how to name.

I watch her, silent, drinking in the sight like a dying man hoarding water.

She is my one weakness.

The one pressure point no enemy could have predicted. No strategist could have planned for. No part of me could have armored against.

I fought it. Christ, how I fought it.

For months, I told myself she was leverage. That she was convenience. A pawn. A symbol.

I made excuses in my mind, ruthless and logical.

Except, every time she looked at me—really looked at me—another wall cracked. Every time she touched me without fear, every time she smiled like I hadn’t broken her, like she didn’t flinch from the monster standing two steps away, something inside me crumbled.

I watch her now, framed by the night sky, and the weight in my chest is almost unbearable.

I have killed for less.

I step forward, the boards creaking slightly under my feet.

She hears me. She always does. Alina turns, a small smile lifting the corners of her mouth—unafraid, unsurprised.

“You’re brooding again,” she says lightly, teasing.

I grunt, moving to stand beside her, one hand braced against the cold stone railing. The night air cools the skin of my bare arms. She doesn’t move away. She leans into my side with the casual trust that still guts me when I least expect it.

“Thinking,” I correct.

She tilts her head, considering me with those clear green eyes that see too much. “Dangerous habit,” she says.

“For me?” I murmur. “Probably.”

She laughs—a low, genuine sound—and the knot in my chest tightens until it aches.

I would raze kingdoms before I let harm touch her again.

“You were mine the moment I saw you,” I say, the words escaping before I can temper them.

She looks up at me, a flicker of emotion crossing her face—something soft, something broken open.

Ownership first. Love followed.

I didn’t understand it at the time. I thought possession was enough, but I was wrong.

Now, watching her, feeling her warmth against my side, I know with a certainty that terrifies me.

She isn’t just part of my world. She is my world.

She smiles again—small, knowing—and rests her head against my shoulder.

We stand like that for a long time.

The night stretches around us, thick and soft as velvet.

We drift into conversation without thinking, the way people do when they’ve fought every war that matters and found themselves still standing, side by side.

Maxim’s latest negotiations with an old French syndicate, a delicate balance of favors and threats.

A real estate deal in Prague that finally closed that morning—one that will strengthen our foothold across Europe.

Quiet victories. The kind of talk people have when they trust each other with more than just their lives.

I watch her as she listens, the way her lips curve when she’s amused, the way her eyes sharpen when she’s curious. There’s a subtlety to her that most men would miss—but not me.

It isn’t what she says.

It’s what she means.

My chest tightens with everything unsaid.

Every time she smiles without fear. Every glance that lingers longer than necessary. Every unconscious touch—her hand brushing mine, her body leaning into my space like it belongs there.

The night feels important somehow. Heavy in my veins. Electric in my bones. Like the world could shift with a breath and neither of us would stop it.

She finishes the last sip of wine from her glass and sets it down carefully on the railing. I see her fingers tremble slightly—not from fear. From knowing.

Knowing what’s about to happen. Knowing she has to choose it.

She turns toward me, her heart pounding so hard I can see the tremor in her throat.

I watch her.

For a long moment, I let her look at me—cut from stone, shaped by violence and survival. I let her see all of it. The man, the monster, everything in between.

She doesn’t flinch. She chooses me.

With devastating slowness, I lift my hands.

I cup her face between them—large, rough palms cradling her cheeks with the kind of care that doesn’t belong in my world. My thumbs brush along her cheekbones, the faint calluses catching slightly against her skin.

What I’m capable of. What I hold back—for her.

“I love you,” I murmur.

My voice cracks at the edges, low and almost broken by how much I mean it.

She closes her eyes, breathing me in. Then her mouth is on mine. Not harshly. It’s deep. Possessive. Tender and consuming all at once.

She melts into me. Her hands fist in my shirt, clinging like she’ll never let go. I tighten my grip, grounding her to me as the night spins, the rain-washed air cooling the heat rising between us.

I kiss her like a man making a vow without words. She kisses me back like a woman finally brave enough to believe it.

When we finally pull apart, the space between us feels unbearable. I lean my forehead against hers, our breath mingling in the chilled air.

I take her hand in mine, turning her palm up. My thumb traces the center of it, slow and deliberate, memorizing the lines written there.

“You could still run,” I say finally, voice barely above a whisper.

“I’m not going anywhere,” she whispers back.

Relief flashes through me—so raw, so unguarded it nearly brings me to my knees.

She leans in, pressing a kiss against the scar just above my heart—the one earned on a night when I thought I wouldn’t live to see the sunrise.

I pull her closer, wrapping my arms around her so tightly I feel her heartbeat against mine.

For a long time, we just stand there.

Two survivors. Two sinners. Two people who know that love isn’t soft. It’s blood and steel and choosing each other even when the world tries to tear you apart.

The wind shifts around us, carrying the scent of rain and roses.

She lifts her head and meets my gaze—the only place I’ve ever truly belonged.

I brush my knuckles along her jaw. “Mine,” I say again, but this time it’s not a threat.

It’s a truth.

“Yours,” she breathes.

This time, it’s a promise.

*****

THE END