Page 115 of Shadowed Sins: Nitro

"I know." He grins, proud anyway. "But you're smiling. Really smiling. And you just called me beloved in your mother's language."

The weight of that hits me. I am. For the third time since meeting him, I'm genuinely smiling, and the feeling behind it is so foreign I can't name it.

Is this happiness?

The thought terrifies me more than any weapon.

I drift toward the living area, fingers trailing along the cold granite, then the rough brick wall, then the smooth leather of his couch. Anchoring myself in textures while memories flood through.

Jax follows, settling beside me close enough that his warmth registers against my skin. My body shifts toward him like a plant seeking sun.

"I spent years believing I had grieved properly." My hands find each other in my lap, fingers weaving patterns that aren't quite combat positions, aren't quite ballet. "But grief requires access to love. And he stole that so completely I didn't even know it was missing."

He shifts beside me, and I catch the muscle tick in his jaw that appears when he's processing something that makes him want to hit things. My body responds to his tension, shifting closer even as my mind catalogues his stress points—the tight line of his shoulders, the way his fingers have stopped their usual tapping.

Something about my pain makes him violent. Good.

"The cottage cheese pancakes brought back her voice. Her actual voice." My chest tightens with the impossible gift of it. "She used to hum when she cooked. Off-key. Papa would tease her, say she was scaring the neighbors' cat. She'd throw dish towels at him."

I can see it so clearly now—our Moscow kitchen with its imported marble counters, steam on the tall windows, mama's apron with the sunflowers that looked so out of place against all that luxury.

"I haven't heard her voice in thirteen years. I forgot she hummed."

His hand finds mine again, and I realize I'm gripping my own fingers hard enough to leave marks. He gently untangles them, spreading my palm flat against his thigh. The heat of him through his jeans makes me hyperaware of every point of contact.

"That's why you test people. Push them away before they can get close."

The observation cuts straight through every defense I never knew I'd built.

"If you can't remember what healthy love feels like, how do you recognize it when someone offers it?" My fingers trace patterns on his thigh now—not tactical, just needing to touch. "I was sixteen. Sixteen, and he made me forget my mother's humming. My father's terrible jokes. The way they'd dance in the kitchen after dinner, even when there was no music."

"You learn again." His thumb traces circles on my wrist, right over the bruises he left. The touch is gentle, reverent, like he's memorizing the damage he caused. "Starting now. Starting with breakfast."

The simplicity of it makes my chest tight. My mind drifts, caught between past and present, between the mother who loved without condition and this man who googles Russian just to make me smile.

"Hey." He squeezes my hand gently. "Where'd you go?"

"I was trying to identify this feeling." The honesty slips out, made possible by breakfast and safety and the way he looks at me like I'm not broken. "When you make me smile. I don't think I remember what happiness feels like anymore."

His face does something complicated—anger and sorrow and determination all at once. His fingers tap that anxious rhythm against his knee, but slower now. More controlled.

"Then we'll figure it out together. Every breakfast, every terrible pronunciation, every time I make you smile." His voice drops, carrying a promise that makes my stomach flutter. "I'll learn every Russian word that makes you happy. Butcher the pronunciation until you laugh. Whatever it takes."

I want to believe him.

The thought is more terrifying than losing my weapon self. Because believing him means trusting that some things can be rebuilt. That the girl who used to sneak down hallways just to hear her parents say goodnight isn't completely gone.

"The syrniki are getting cold," I say instead.

"Can't have that." He doesn't push, doesn't demand more vulnerability than I've already given. "Want me to make more? I bought enough cottage cheese to feed a small army."

"Why?"

"Because I wanted to make sure I got it right." He flushes again, that shy energy returning but tempered with something more confident. "You deserve perfect breakfast. Especially after..." He gestures vaguely at the marks visible on both of us. "After I kind of lost control last night."

"We both did."

"Yeah, but—" He runs his hand through his hair again, making it stick up worse. "I've never been like that before. That intense. That... desperate to prove you belonged to me."