They kept my secrets.
Protected me, in their own cautious, lethal way.
They adored Vanya—Ruslan most of all.
I’d thought I’d buried Dmitri in those years.
I’d thought I’d rebuilt myself, forged a life where his memory was only a faint ache.
But the revelation in the letter hit like a bullet.
Dmitri and Ruslan... friends?
The Greek kingpin and the Italian don, bonded across seas and legends? I couldn’t fathom it. But the truth, written in Ruslan’s steady hand, was undeniable.
Tomorrow.
Dmitri was marrying Seraphina tomorrow.
My breath hitched.
I’d assumed he’d wed Seraphina years ago—why wait five years? Why mourn me so long if he despised me? Why search for a ghost he claimed not to love?
The thought of him standing at the altar—Seraphina’s hand in his, her perfect smile raised toward him—sent a sharp, nauseating twist through my stomach.
It shouldn’t hurt.
I’d built a life here.
I had friends, security, purpose—freedom.
I had Vanya. My miracle.
I should’ve been untouched by Dmitri’s choices.
But the pain remained, raw and undeniable. Proof that a tattered, foolish piece of me still loved him—despite everything. Despite the cruelty. Despite the darkness. Despite the scars he left behind.
“Mom?”
The soft voice pulled me back from the precipice. I blinked, breath shaky, turning toward the doorway.
Vanya stood there, framed by sunlight, his curls dark and unruly from chasing Ruslan’s silent son across the courtyard.Concern shadowed his features, deepening the furrow between his brows.
God.
He looked so much like Dmitri it hurt.
The sharp jawline he’d grow into one day.
The intense, calculating eyes that saw too much.
The quiet, deliberate way he held himself, as if he were always thinking three steps ahead.
My son was a living echo of the man I had loved and feared in equal measure.
A reminder. A lifeline.
And my undoing all at once.
