“Last week you burned the soup so badly the smoke detector went off for three hours,” Kirill said, his tone dripping with mock innocence. “I’m starting to think Damir Kamarov’s talents lie exclusively in breaking things, not making them. At least when you break things, they stay broken. Your cooking attempts keep coming back to haunt us.”
“Keep talking, tech genius,” Damir shot back without looking away from his pelmeni, “and I’ll break something with your name on it. I don’t need a skillet to destroy you.”
Their familiar bickering settled something in my chest. This was what I’d missed about Russia. Not the endless work or the political machinations, but this—the simple reality of men who’d bled together, treating each other like brothers because they were. It was the part of my heritage I’d almost lost when I was forced to leave for Chicago, the part I’d thought was gone forever.
Kirill caught my eye and grinned. “Welcome back, Kamarov. Your brother’s been cooking all day in preparation for your arrival. I’d suggest you handle your own food.”
I clapped Damir on the shoulder, careful not to disturb his cooking. “I’ll survive whatever he’s making. We’re actually not staying long.”
Damir’s face fell slightly, but he recovered quickly. That was the Kamarov way—disappointment was just another obstacle to overcome. “How long?”
“Until tomorrow morning. We fly back to Chicago tonight after we settle Luka.”
“Typical,” Kirill muttered, but there was no real bite to it. “Married man, domestic responsibilities, a son who probably cries at inconvenient times. Look at how far you’ve fallen from the days when you could disappear for weeks on a whim.”
“I didn’t fall,” I said, and I meant it with everything inside me. “I ascended. There’s a difference.”
Damir looked at me like he wanted to say something profound but didn’t quite have the words. Instead, he flipped another pelmeni and said, “Your wife is changing the entire structure of the Chicago operations. Rafael told me she’s demanding fifty-fifty partnership on all decisions. That’s insane.”
“That’s brilliant,” I corrected. “Rafael’s been running things the same way for twenty years. He needs someone to shake it up, someone who isn’t afraid of him.”
“Cassandra isn’t afraid of anyone,” Kirill said, and there was a note of respect in his voice that hadn’t been there six months ago. “Including you.Especiallyyou.”
I didn’t linger with them longer than necessary. I had somewhere else to be, someone I needed to see.
I headed toward the back room—the one with the large window facing the forest. I knew I’d find her there because Cassandra had developed a rhythm over the past six months, and that rhythm revolved entirely around our son.
She stood silhouetted against the window, swaying gently, her dark hair loose around her shoulders. In her arms, our newborn son slept, tiny and perfect and absolutely terrifying in his fragility. Luka. We’d named him Luka, after my grandfather, after a man who’d built an empire from ashes and never apologized for what he’d had to become. I’d wanted to give our son a name that meant something, that carried the weight of legacy without the burden of expectation.
I watched them for a moment—my wife and my son—and felt something crack open in my chest. Six months ago, I’d been a different man. Colder. More calculating. The kind of man who could walk away from anything because nothing had ever been worth staying for. The kind of man who’d been trained since childhood to see relationships as vulnerabilities rather than strengths.
Then Cassandra fell into my life like a meteor, and suddenly I understood what people meant when they talked about having something to lose. It wasn’t just abstract anymore. It was real and breathing and completely, utterly fragile.
“He’s been quiet all day,” Cassandra whispered, not taking her eyes off our son. “I’m starting to wonder if there’s something wrong with him. What if he’s—”
“He’s sleeping,” I said gently, moving to stand beside her. “That’s what babies do. That’s what they’re supposed to do.”
Luka’s tiny fist curled into the fabric of her sweater, his temper already hers—possessive and fierce and impossible to ignore. Even in sleep, he demanded attention.
“He’s beautiful,” I whispered, reaching out to touch the dark hair on his head. It was black like mine, like hers, like everyone in my family. “He’s going to be a force of nature.”
“He’s got your stubborn face,” she murmured, adjusting her position slightly. “I can already see it. In twenty years, he’s going to walk into rooms and people are going to know exactly who his father is.”
“He’s got your temper,” I countered. “I’ve seen it. Twenty seconds old and already angry at the world. Like he was born ready to fight.”
Cassandra smiled, that rare, real smile that still caught me off guard sometimes. The one that showed me she was happy in a way that went deeper than pleasure or satisfaction. Contentment. Peace. The kind of emotion I didn’t think was possible for someone like me.
“Rafael was asking when we’re coming back,” I told her, watching her face carefully. Six months of marriage, and I still couldn’t read her perfectly, but I was getting better. She had tells—the way her jaw tightened when she was thinking strategically, the way her eyes softened when she was thinking about Luka, the way her entire body changed when she was processing something emotionally significant.
“What did you tell him?” she asked.
“I said we’d be back in Chicago tomorrow. He seemed disappointed that we weren’t staying longer.”
She turned to look at me, her dark eyes still holding traces of the woman who’d pulled a trigger to save my life. That hadn’t changed. She carried that version of herself alongside this one—the mother, the wife, the woman who could hold our son with infinite gentleness and then walk into a room full of Bratva soldiers and command their respect with a single glance. I’d learned to love both versions equally.
“Did you tell him about the partnership terms?” she asked.
“No. I thought you’d want to do that yourself.”
