He needed to know the truth, So he wouldn’t be disappointed when the darkness in me surfaced.
A breath.
A vow sharpened into bone.
“But I can promise you this: I will protect her with my life. And if anyone else tries to hurt her—anyone at all—I will burn the world down and salt the earth.”
His face shattered.
Not subtle.
It cracked open like glass under pressure, all the bravery and defiance crumbling into something pure and unbearably human: heartbreak.
His lower lip quivered. His shoulders trembled.
Then the tears came—slow at first, one quiet betrayal rolling down his cheek.
Then another.
Then the dam broke.
Small, stuttering sobs shook his whole body.
He tried to swallow them down.
Tried to be strong.
Tried to be older than five years and four months—
But he was only a child who had been running on fear and adrenaline and the desperate hope that someone would finally be honest with him.
I had made grown men sob blood and call it mercy.
But nothing—nothing—had ever gutted me like this.
Before I knew I was moving, I was kneeling in front of him, sinking down slowly, as if approaching a wounded animal too fragile to touch.
“Vanya,” I rasped, reaching out.
He didn’t flinch. Didn’t back away. Didn’t throw up those tiny stop-sign hands again.
I took his trembling hands gently, lifting each one into my palm, and used my silk pocket square to wipe the tears from his cheeks. The tears only came harder, hot streaks dripping onto his Iron Man pyjamas.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, failing at control for the first time in years. “I’m sorry, kotyonok. Please don’t cry.”
The old endearment slipped out before I could stop it.
The one I whispered to Penelope under that oak tree.
The instant it left my tongue, Vanya sobbed even harder—shoulders shaking, breath hitching, grief punching out of him in little gasps.
And then he moved.
Suddenly. Violently. Like a wave hitting the shore.
He launched himself at me.
His small body collided with my chest, arms wrapping around my neck with desperate, terrified strength. His face buried into my collar, hot tears soaking into my skin.
