Page 33 of Pregnant Virgin of the Bratva (Sharov Bratva #14)

One Year Later

The garden is in full bloom.

Lavender spills over the edges of the stone path, brushing against my ankles as I walk barefoot across the grass.

White roses climb the trellis in lazy arcs, their petals open and generous in the morning sun.

Even the hydrangeas, which I once thought too delicate for this soil, have taken to the quiet countryside like they’ve always belonged here.

Everything has softened. Even us.

I stop just short of the old bench beneath the birch tree, shading my eyes against the light.

Kion is already outside, sleeves rolled up, shirt untucked, barefoot like me.

His hair is slightly damp from the shower, curling at the edges.

He stands in the grass with our daughter perched on one strong arm, laughing as she clutches the air.

“Again!” she demands, pointing toward the sky with one chubby hand.

He tosses her up—only a little, just enough to make her squeal—and catches her without effort. She erupts into giggles, feet kicking, curls bouncing beneath the crooked tilt of her sunhat.

I lean against the wall near the kitchen door and just watch.

Kion doesn’t see me yet.

I want to see him like this—unguarded, smiling without calculation, his mouth soft, his posture loose. I want to soak in the sound of her laughter filling the garden, that full-bodied joy that only toddlers seem to have, the kind that rolls up from their bellies and shakes their whole bodies.

Liliana is one now. Strong-willed, sharp-eyed, and absolutely fearless.

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.”

His hand comes to rest over hers. “You both saved me.”

We stand like that for a moment, the wind brushing through the grass, the roses nodding gently above us.

“She’s going to have a good life,” I whisper. “Not perfect, but good.”

He kisses me again, slower this time. Less teasing. I sink into it, shifting Liliana slightly in my arms, feeling the steady thrum of contentment that’s wrapped itself around us in this place.

His lips brush mine again—soft at first, patient, but it doesn’t stay soft.

It deepens quickly, like it always does with us. Like he’s been waiting for an excuse to remember how I taste. His hand comes up to cup the side of my face, the warmth of his palm grounding me. He pulls me closer, and I let him, even with Liliana heavy in my arms.

His mouth parts, coaxing mine open. The kiss shifts from sweet to something darker. Something familiar. His tongue slips against mine, slow and deliberate, and I feel the heat coil in my stomach the way it always has with him—sharp, immediate, impossible to ignore.

My fingers tighten against his shirt. He groans quietly, lips brushing against the corner of my mouth like he doesn’t want to stop.

“You’re dangerous,” I whisper.

He just grins, wicked and soft. “That’s your fault, sweetheart.”

I gasp a little, grinding against him.

“Not now,” he murmurs, stealing another kiss before pulling back just slightly, forehead pressed to mine. “Later.”

“Promise?”

His eyes flick down to my lips, then to our daughter’s sleeping face. “Count on it.”

He shifts his arms carefully, lifting Liliana from my hold and into his. She doesn’t stir much—just murmurs something soft and incomprehensible, her fingers tightening slightly against the collar of his shirt before relaxing again.

I follow them up the steps and through the open back door, back into the life we built one piece at a time.

Inside, the house hums with quiet warmth.

Sunlight pours through the tall windows and paints golden stripes across the kitchen floor.

The scent of butter and sugar still lingers from breakfast, mixing with something floral that drifts in from the open windows.

There’s a stack of folded laundry on one end of the couch, two board books abandoned beside it.

Liliana’s latest masterpiece—an orange and purple scribble that somehow required three markers and a full meltdown—hangs on the fridge beside a faded grocery list. Below it, three more pieces of paper, each messier than the last, flutter from crooked magnets.

One has her name written over and over in my handwriting, slowly, carefully, until she could mimic the shape of the L all on her own.

Her handprints are still on the pantry door. Kion says we’ll repaint it eventually. I know we won’t.

I write again—finally.

In the mornings, when the house is still and quiet, I curl up with a pen and a notebook at the kitchen table or in the wide chair by the front window.

Sometimes Kion reads beside me, his free hand brushing across my knee or resting at the small of my back.

He doesn’t say much about the writing, but I see the way his eyes linger when I scribble into the margins or flip to a fresh page.

Sometimes, he reads aloud. Old poetry. Russian translations.

Anything that catches his attention. His voice stays low and warm as it fills the space between us, wrapping around me like a blanket I didn’t know I needed.

My favorite place is still his lap, tucked into his chest with one leg thrown over his, the rise and fall of his breath a steady anchor beneath the words.

He sets Liliana in her crib just off the kitchen now, behind the baby gate and the half-drawn curtain. She turns onto her side the moment her head touches the mattress, one thumb sliding into her mouth before she lets out a tiny sigh and falls back into sleep.

He returns quietly. No heavy footsteps. No command in his posture. Just Kion, moving through his home like a man who knows what peace costs and is willing to protect it at any price.

I sit on the couch, one leg folded beneath me, and he joins me without asking.

His arm drapes behind my shoulders, and I lean into him easily.

His other hand finds my thigh, rubbing slow, grounding circles through the fabric of my dress.

We sit there like that for a while, the room filled with the soft hum of wind through the trees and the slow tick of the clock on the far wall.

He kisses my temple.

I close my eyes.

This is our life now.

Not a prize. Not a compromise.

Just a life. One we made ourselves—through blood and fear and choice and quiet.

I still wake sometimes in the middle of the night and find him watching us.

I’ll roll onto my side to see him propped against the headboard, one hand on Liliana’s tiny back where she’s nestled between us, his other hand brushing my hair off my face.

He doesn’t always know I’m awake when he whispers.

“I hope you know,” he murmurs, a smile in his voice, “I’d do it all again. Every terrible thing, if it meant ending up here with you.”

I settle by his side, and watch the sky shift slowly from gold to rose.

Outside, the garden drinks in the last light of the day.

The shadows stretch long across the grass, and the birch trees at the edge of the property whisper as the breeze stirs through their leaves.

Somewhere nearby, a bird sings one last bright note before the hush of evening settles over everything.

I stand at the kitchen sink, rinsing the last of Liliana’s snack bowls while the soft clatter of the water echoes through the otherwise quiet house.

Kion took her outside after dinner, said she was restless.

I hear them through the open window—her laughter tumbling upward into the sky, light and unfiltered, and his lower voice chasing after it like a tether, anchoring it in place.

“Want to watch the sunset together?” I ask, and he grins.

Liliana yawns, her little hands coming up to grab at us, and I laugh.

“I guess she wants to watch too.”

I walk outside barefoot, down the stone steps and into the cool grass. The garden glows, all soft shadows and lavender haze. Kion stands near the birch, Liliana balanced against his chest, one small arm draped over his shoulder like she owns the world.

She babbles when she sees me, lifting one hand and pointing straight at me. Her curls are slightly damp at the edges, her cheeks pink from excitement, and her shirt is dotted with something that looks suspiciously like jam. Kion has a smear on his sleeve too, but neither of them seems to care.

He shifts her carefully, cradling her against one side, and reaches for my hand with the other.

I go to him without hesitation, slipping my fingers into his.

She reaches for me next, grabbing at my thumb and pulling my hand to her face, pressing it to her cheek with a sleepy grin.

Liliana starts babbling again, a string of nonsense syllables and half-formed words, her tone serious and her hands moving as if she’s trying to explain something deeply important. Kion nods as if he understands every word, his eyes soft as he listens to her.

I rest my head lightly against his shoulder and close my eyes.

The wind shifts through the trees again. The light dips lower. The whole garden seems to exhale.

And it hits me. This is what it feels like to be safe. Really, truly safe and happy.

Kion’s thumb moves gently over the back of my hand.

I open my eyes and look up at him. His gaze is already on me. There’s no question in it. He looks at me the way no one else ever has.

I realize… this is my forever.

I’m exactly where I’m meant to be.

*****

THE END