“You burned it last week,” Kirill was saying, pointing an accusing finger. “I have witnesses. Hailey called it ‘inedible,’ and she’s not even here to judge.”
“That was an experiment,” Damir shot back, his face flushed. “This is intentional cuisine.”
“That’s what you said last time.”
“This time, I mean it.”
Cassandra and I caught each other’s eyes, and we both started laughing. Quietly at first, then harder, until we were leaning on each other, trying to muffle the sound so we didn’tdisturb Luka, who’d started to fuss slightly from his cot in the back room.
“We’re leaving,” I called out to them. “Cassandra’s needed in Chicago.”
“About time,” Damir said, flipping a pelmeni with surprising finesse. “Rafael’s been miserable without her. That office has gone to shit. Nothing runs properly anymore. He actually asked me if I knew how to manage a calendar, and I told him to fuck off.”
“She was his right hand,” Kirill added, tipping his vodka in our direction. “We all knew she was. Now he’s realized he can’t function without her, which is funny because she’s also yours now. Must be complicated.”
I looked at my wife—my brilliant, fierce, dangerous wife—and saw her considering this. She’d been many things in her life. Rafael’s shadow. Vance’s weapon. My enemy. My lover. The mother of my child. But she was all of those things in service of one truth: She was a Kamarov now. Not by blood, but by choice and by love and by the decision to fight for what mattered.
“You know I’m not coming back as his assistant,” she said, her voice carrying the particular calm that usually preceded her making some kind of power play. “Fifty-fifty on operations. Fifty-fifty on decisions, that’s what we agreed on. If he doesn’t like the arrangement anymore, I’ll run the Chicago branch independently and let him know how obsolete he’s become. I’m not interested in working for anyone anymore. I’m only interested in building something.”
Both Damir and Kirill looked at me, eyebrows raised.
I just smiled. “Did I mention my wife was brilliant?”
“I would have noticed if she wasn’t,” Kirill said dryly. “She killed a federal agent and made it look like justice.”
The comment hung in the air between us. Vance Donovan. The man we’d left bleeding in an abandonedwarehouse six months ago. The man whose death had been officially ruled a gang-related homicide, a cautionary tale about what happened when you got too close to organized crime. The man who’d tried to weaponize my wife and destroy my family.
Rafael had handled it all with his usual precision. He’d cleaned up the warehouse, made sure the bodies disappeared into the system, ensured that no investigation would stick. He’d also, in his quiet way, made it clear that Cassandra’s loyalty had been tested and proven. That she’d been willing to kill for Bratva, which meant she was truly one of us now.
I went back to check on Luka before we left. He was sleeping peacefully now, his tiny fist curled against his chest. I stood there for a long moment, just watching him breathe. This child, who’d never know the weight of what his parents had done to protect him. This child who’d grow up with two parents who’d chosen each other despite every logical reason not to.
“Come on,” I said, taking Cassandra’s hand. “We need to get packed. Rafael’s expecting us in Chicago by morning.”
But before we moved, I paused and looked at my wife one more time.Reallylooked at her. The woman who’d followed me into darkness. The woman who’d pulled a trigger to save my life. The woman who was carrying our son with her back to a city that would try to consume us both.
“I love you,” I said, and it still felt like the most dangerous thing I’d ever admitted. More dangerous than any weapon. More lethal than any war.
“I know,” she replied, and then she kissed me. Soft and certain and absolutely devastating.
From inside, Damir and Kirill were arguing about soup again. Outside, the Russian winter wrapped around us like a promise—cold and beautiful and absolutely unforgiving. And somewhere in the house, our son slept, dreaming of a worldwhere love didn’t cost blood. A world where family was something you chose, not something that was forced upon you.
I’d spent my whole life thinking that safety meant isolation. That the only way to survive was to keep everyone at a distance and trust no one. That love was a weakness that would get you killed.
But then Cassandra had crashed into my carefully controlled existence, and I’d learned that some people were worth the risk. Some people were worth burning the world down for. Some people made you understand that the careful, calculated life I’d been living was just a rehearsal for the real thing.
And I was going to spend the rest of my life making sure she never questioned that. Making sure our son grew up knowing that love wasn’t weakness. Making sure that in a world built on violence and betrayal, we created something different.
Something real.
Something worth protecting.
***
THE END
