Page 106 of Pregnant Virgin of the Bratva

She’s also his undoing.

I’ve watched the man who once ruled cities through fear and precision become a father who sings lullabies off-key and makes up stories about rabbits in the rain. He carries her with the same hands that used to break bones. Holds her like something holy.

There are moments I still don’t recognize him.

Not because he’s changed—he hasn’t, not completely—but because he lets me see more now. He lets me hold the gentler parts. The quieter ones. The pieces of him he kept buried for so long, even from himself.

He turns suddenly, as if sensing me, and our eyes meet across the garden.

The corner of his mouth lifts. That rare smile, the one he saves for me alone. It tugs at something deep in my chest. Even now, even after everything, it still does.

He walks toward me with Liliana cradled against his chest. Her tiny fingers are tangled in his collar, her head nestled against his shoulder. She’s already starting to outgrow his arms, though she still fits perfectly when she’s asleep.

“She wore herself out,” he murmurs.

I reach for her automatically. She comes willingly, curling into me with a sleepy sigh.

“She’s wild this morning.”

“She’s always wild,” he says, brushing a strand of hair from my face. “Like her mother.”

I roll my eyes. “You’re the one who taught her to scale furniture.”

“She learns fast,” he says proudly. “Another week and she’ll have the gate figured out.”

“God help us.”

We both glance toward the edge of the garden, where the fence meets the open field. The land beyond is ours too—rolling hills, an old stone wall, and trees that turn gold in the autumn. When Kion bought the place, he said he wanted a home with no neighbors. No threats. Just distance.

He gave us that. Safety, quiet, space to grow.

Sometimes I forget what we came from.

He leans in and kisses my temple. I close my eyes for a second, breathing him in—sunlight, laundry soap, something warm and familiar I can never quite name.

“Still glad you stayed?” he asks softly.

I look up at him, startled by the question. “Of course I am.”

“Even after… all of it?”

“All of it led us here.”

He nods, but I see the shadow in his eyes—the memory of what we were. What he was. There’s a part of him that still doesn’t believe he deserves this. That expects it to be taken.

“You wake up every morning,” I say, “and kiss me like you’re thankful I’m here. Like you remember I could’ve walked away.”

“I do,” he says simply.

“Well, I didn’t,” I remind him. “I never wanted to.”

“You were scared at first.”

“So were you.”

He looks at Liliana, now fast asleep against my chest. “She changed everything.”

“You did that before she was ever born.”