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He shakes his head. “No. That comes with the territory. The ones I’ve lost—they shouldn’t have been targeted to begin with. At least two of them were completely innocent. And those who weren’t…” a sharp intake of breath. “They still shouldn’t have been killed that night.”

Finally, realization dawns upon me. I’ve held the hands of too many people in waiting rooms not to recognize the sadness in Yulian’s eyes.

“Your family,” I whisper.

He doesn’t deny it. “They were after me. Instead, they got them. My parents, my sister.” His fist clenches and unclenches, as if trying to squeeze out the emotions like bad blood from a wound.

For a man like Yulian Lozhkin, there is no worse infection than a beating heart.

“My best friend, too. Kira. She had nothing to do with our family, but she took a bullet for me anyway.”

“Why?”

“They thought she was going to be my fiancée.” A cold, bitter laugh. “They didn’t know the first thing about her. We were like siblings. And she never would have let herself be tied down by marriage. Not to me, not to anyone.”

He thinks it’s his fault. He thinks he’s why they died.

A lump settles in my throat, but I force myself to swallow it.

This isn’t my pain. This isn’t my guilt.

No matter how familiar it feels, how white-hot and burning, it’s nothing compared to what I’ve gone through.

I only thought I’d lost my child—but to actually lose him?

To lose the only family I’ve got left, and feel like I was responsible?

I’d never feel at peace again. Not as long as I was alive.

“I’m sorry.” It’s the only thing I can think to say. The only thing worth saying in the face of all this pain. I knew Yulian had no family—I had no idea he’d lost them so violently. “You shouldn’t have had to go through that. It was unfair.”

“Life’s unfair.”

“It didn’t have to be. Not for you.”

Hesitantly, I touch my hand to his shoulder. I’m prepared to feel him flinch away, shrug me off like an insect, crush me for even daring.

But he doesn’t.

“I couldn’t catch their killers then,” he growls instead, filling the well of his pain with something easier, something manageable: anger. “But fuck if I’ll ever let that happen again.”

“That’s what StarTech is about,” I whisper. “Making people safe.”

“No one should ever be unsafe in their own homes,” he snarls. “At the office. At school. War should stick to war zones. Casualties shouldn’t be random. That’s why we have soldiers.”

I get the feeling he isn’t talking about the U.S. Army. That his wars have always taken place on much different battlefields, away from the sunlight and the surface.

That’s where he wants to keep them—in his world.

Away from ours.

Away from mine.

“It’s a noble thing to do.”

“It’s not. It’s the least I could do.”

“But you’re doing it.” I give his shoulder another soft squeeze. “That’s more than most in your position have tried.”

“How would you know?”

“I work at the ER. I’ve lost more patients to guns than cancer.” I give a watery smile. “So, if someone’s trying to fix that? I don’t care who they are. I don’t care what they’ve done. They’re doing it. That’s what matters.”

Yulian’s gaze flickers from me to the floor. I’ve never seen him so evasive—so obviously uncomfortable.

“What happened with Kira…” he starts, throat working around words that won’t come. “I cannot guarantee it won’t happen again.”

I wonder if this is why Yulian doesn’t have a girlfriend. A real one, without contracts and timestamps. If losing Kira scarred him so badly he’s afraid to ever try.

“It was a long time ago,” I try to reason with him.

“It’s who I am,” he counters. “I’m a powerful man, a dangerous man. As long as I’m pakhan, I’ll have enemies.”

“I’ve been your fake girlfriend for a couple of months now.” I slide my palm down his arm, tug on his hand. Coax his gaze back on me instead of the cold tiled floor. “I’m still here. Nothing’s happened to me.”

“That’s not?—”

“Here.” Slowly, I move his hand to the center of my chest. Slightly off to the left—right over my heart. “See? Still beating.”

He swallows. His jaw flexes, but it doesn’t look like anger, for once. It looks like conflict.

It looks like?—

“Mommy!”

From above, Eli waves down at us. Tikhon’s there, holding on to his hand, preventing him from trying to run off somewhere he shouldn’t.

“Sorry about the interruption!” he laughs. “This little scientist was wondering about pizza. And ice cream?”

The spell breaks. Yulian’s hand slips quickly from my grasp, his composure returning like a veil of ice.

“Yes,” he says. “I believe that’s what was promised.”

“Lucky you,” Tikhon sighs wistfully. “I wish I had pizza and ice cream in my contract.”

I shake my head, but can’t help smiling.

As we make our way back up, I press myself close to Yulian. “Thank you,” I whisper. “For telling me.”

“I hadn’t meant to.” His eyes are still wandering away from mine. “I was supposed to tell you about the company.”

“You have. You’ve told me more than you think.”

“Have I now?”

Yes. You’ve told me you want to make the world a better place. That you don’t want the darkness of the underworld to spill into the surface. That you’ll do everything you can to prevent it.

You told me you care.

Before I can answer, we get ambushed by a tiny ball of excitement. “Tikhon says I can work here when I grow up! I can be his append—appro?—”

“Apprentice?” I laugh. “That sounds wonderful. But you have to work hard, okay? Do all your homework once school starts.”

“I will!”

We bid goodbye to Tikhon. “Thanks for doing this,” I tell him. “It means the world.”

“Are you kidding? I loved having a little intern around. Best brainstorming companion I’ve had since Pyotr took his sabbatical.”

We each take one of Eli’s hands and walk out of StarTech. Yulian suggests he treat us to the snazziest pizza in town.

Yulian. A brutal, hardened pakhan with no morals. That’s who I thought he was at first.

Now, I realize I couldn’t have been further off from the truth.

Because he’s also the man who saved me. The man who protected me from a rain of bullets, who shielded me with his body and dragged me to safety when he barely knew me. The man who stepped between me and Brad twice. The man who dropped everything to care for me and my kid when I needed it.

The man I love.