Page 48 of The Pakhan’s Bride (Mafia Bosses #3)

EPILOGUE: ZOYA

I t's been a very long evening of my mind refusing to settle, even though I'm reading what is otherwise a very interesting book.

I'm on page three and about to give up when Lev appears in the doorway of my suite's office.

His pajamas are too short, wrists and ankles poking out like twigs.

He's holding a scrap of paper, his face a riot of sleep lines and confusion.

I make room for him on the ottoman. He climbs up and sits with knees to his chest. "Are you okay, sweetie? " I ask.

He shakes his head. "I want to know if Aunty is really dead."

I take the paper from his hand. It's a child's drawing—two stick figures, one in a blue dress, one in yellow. Both have crowns. The yellow one has X’s for eyes. I trace the line of the crown with my thumb. "She's not coming back," I say. "But she's not gone, either. She's just… far away."

He considers this. "Like outer space?"

I want to say yes, but I can't lie. "Like a different country," I say. "A place where we can't follow."

He leans against me, small but solid. "Can I sleep here tonight?" he asks.

I nod. "Of course."

He curls into my side, and I run my hand over his hair, counting the pulse in his scalp.

The monitors glow blue in the dark, their soft hum a lullaby.

When his breathing slows, I ease him onto the couch and stand.

The room is lit by the shifting squares of the surveillance feed, each one a story without context—a man lighting a cigarette on the corner, a woman walking a dog, a convoy of unmarked cars rolling down a frozen street.

On the desk, the dossier I abandoned is open to a photograph.

It's Ekaterina, sitting in a sunlit courtyard in India.

Her hair is longer now, braided down her back, but her face is unchanged.

She's wearing viridian. Her hands are pressed together, knuckles white, but she looks more peaceful than I've ever seen her.

I remember the moment in the orchard. The recoil of the pistol, the way her body folded, the blood blooming through silk.

I remember her eyes on mine, calm, unblinking, as if she'd been waiting for this for years.

I touch the photo. The paper is thin, glossy, and cold.

A chime sounds. The tablet on the corner of the desk vibrates, lighting up with a secure call.

A moment's hesitation later, I answer. The connection stabilizes.

For a second, just static, then the video resolves—Ekaterina, alive, cross-legged on a stone bench, behind her a wash of prayer flags and the blur of bougainvillea in full riot.

Her skin is tanned, but the old scar under her chin glows white in the sun. Her eyes are sharp, clear, and hungry.

"Zoya," she says. Her voice is softer than I remember, filtered by six time zones and a wall of encryption.

I'm not sure whether I want to cry. "India suits you," I say.

She grins, flashes teeth. "You'd like it. Very busy, but also… incredibly beautiful, if you know were to look."

I lean back in the chair, force my voice level. "Is this safe?"

She shrugs, the gesture loose, almost lazy. "Nothing is safe, little dove."

I hear a cough offscreen. She glances left, then back. "You did well at the orchard."

The connection stutters, then stabilizes. The shot was real. The blood was real. But the bullet wasn't hollow. "You always did love theatre," I murmur.

Her mouth curls. "They didn't check for a pulse."

"They didn't need to. You stopped breathing," I point out.

"For seventeen seconds," she says, almost proud. "Military-grade myorelaxant. It mimics a seizure and crash. I got the vial from one of Papa's old caches. The rest was sleight of hand and timing."

"And the Syndicate?"

She sips from a cup. "Sometimes, the only way to survive is to let them bury you. But you don't need to stay in the grave."

For Ekaterina to forgo everything she built, all the glamor and suspense and darkness of the Mafia world… it is a big, big thing. I don't know if she'll manage to live out her days in this self-imposed exile, but maybe people change. I would know.

I stare at her. At the woman I killed and the one still sitting across from me.

Both real, and both mine. There's a hundred different things that I want to say, but I choose to go with, "Lev misses you.

" Her eyes flicker. For a moment, she's just a girl in the snow, running ahead of me, daring me to catch her.

"Tell him I'm not dead," she says. "Tell him I'll come home someday."

I nod, though we both know it's a lie. She leans closer to the camera, the pixelation making her face almost break apart. "Happiness suits you, little dove."

The screen goes black. I get up, take Lev in my arms, still fast asleep, and carry him to the bedroom, where I lay him down. He's bone tired, doesn't stir even a little. When I step outside after closing the door, Konstantin is at the entrance of the suite. "How is she?" he asks.

It's a tough question to answer. "I want to say she's well," I reply carefully.

Without saying anything else, he crosses over to where I stand and wraps his arms around me.

He leans in, brushes his lips over my forehead, and then my mouth.

That mouth of his is telling me we've earned this.

We stand in the middle of the room, wrapped in a quiet so thick it feels holy.

For once, there is no threat at the window. No ticking bomb beneath our feet.

Just the Pakhan and his Queen.