Now my day starts like this.
With the soft weight of my baby daughter curled against my chest, her warm breath fogging the fabric of my shirt. With the quiet hum of domestic life settling like a balm I didn’t know I needed.
Three months old, and she already has Jasmine’s eyes. Big. Dark. Curious. Every time she blinks up at me, something in my chest pulls in a way no blade, no bullet, no enemy has ever managed.
I’ve never loved anything the way I love her. Except her mother.
I adjust her carefully, one arm anchored around her tiny body. She stirs with a soft sound, halfway between a sigh and a complaint, and I press a kiss to her downy forehead.
“Shh, kroshka. Your mother is still sleeping.”
My voice is a whisper, but the kid’s ears are sharp. She wiggles again, tiny fists stretching toward the ceiling before folding against her chest.
She looks like she’s fighting invisible enemies in her dreams.
Good girl.
She’ll never know what it means to run. She’ll never know what it means to fear the slam of a door. She’ll never hide bruises under a too-big jacket because she has nowhere safe to go. She will never live even a fraction of the life her mother endured before she stepped into my world.
Not while I’m alive.
The sound of footsteps pulls my attention to the hallway, the boards creaking under a familiar heavy stride.
My brother Dariy appears first, followed by one of our younger brothers, Rurik. They both freeze for a moment at the sight of me standing barefoot in my kitchen, my three-month-old daughter bundled against my chest.
Dariy smirks. “Look at you. The big bad boss turned into a family man.”
Rurik snorts. “If our enemies could see you now, we’d never hear the end of it.”
I roll my eyes. “If our enemies are close enough to see me holding my child, you both failed at your jobs.”
Viktor barks a laugh and ruffles my daughter’s soft hair with a finger. “Relax,Ad. We’re just here to check on Jasmine.”
“She’s fine,” I say, because she is. She’s more than fine. She’s thriving. She’s softer now, lighter, still fierce in that quiet, resilient way that hooked something deep in me the night she walked into my life looking like she’d been carved out of determination and exhaustion.
She gave birth like she does everything else, with grit and fire and a shocking amount of calm.
She’s mine in every way that counts.
Rurik narrows his eyes. “And you? How areyoudoing, big brother?”
Before I can answer, the baby wiggles again and makes a sound of pure outrage at the world. Both of my brothers instantly freeze, eyes widening like they’ve triggered a bomb.
The corner of my mouth lifts. “She growls just like her mother.”
They chuckle but wisely take a step back.
“Tell Jasmine we said hello,” Dairy murmurs. “We’ll check in with Damian about the expansion.”
I nod, and they slip out the back door, leaving the house quiet again except for the tiny, determined noises from the bundle in my arms and the low rumble of my own heartbeat.
I breathe her in again. Milk, warmth, and that soft newborn scent that breaks every bone in my body and remakes them into something unrecognisable.
Then I hear her.
Soft footfalls. A sigh. The faint rustle of fabric.
I turn, and everything in me goes still.
