"A sacred promise. I've never lied to Nico. Not once in nine years. He's the only person who knows all of me. The weapon he forged, the nightmares that still wake me at 3 AM, the parts I hide from everyone else."
"Until now."
The words land like stones in my chest, crushing something vital. "Until now. I've lied to him twice in the past few days. I hear his voice on the phone and I lie. He asked me what's wrong and I said nothing. He asked if you were hurting me and I said no."
Alexei opens his mouth to defend himself, but no words come out.
"The worst part is, he knows. Nico always knows when something's wrong with me. He can hear it in my breathing, in the space between words. He's probably lying awake right now, running through scenarios, trying to figure out what I'm hiding."
I can't deny it. The proof is in the way my hands tremble, in the nausea that rises when I think about facing Nico.
"What will you tell him?"
"I don't know." I press my face into my captor's chest, breathing him in, that amber-and-smoke scent that's rewriting my DNA. "I don't know."
Later, we're both dressed. Me in his shirt and soft pants I found in a drawer, him in casual clothes I've never seen him wear. Dark jeans, a gray henley that clings to his chest. The domesticity of it creates a dangerous warmth in my belly, makes me imagine mornings that will never exist.
He leads me to the bonsai on his dresser, the one he tends every morning with careful precision.
"Did Mikhail own this one too?" I ask.
"No," he says, voice soft with memory. "This one, I started myself. It's only ten years old."
"Show me."
He moves behind me, his chest pressing against my back, his arms coming around me to guide my hands to the tiny branches. The full-body contact makes my breath catch. I can feel every inch of him. The hard planes of his chest, the way his cock starts to harden against my ass. My body responds instantly, nipples tightening, pussy growing wet. Even this innocent moment becomes charged between us.
"You don't cut randomly. You look at the shape it wants to become, then help it get there." His breath stirs my hair, his lips so close to my ear I shiver. "Patience. That's the whole thing. You can't force it."
"What happens if you force it?"
"It dies. Or grows wrong. Twisted, stunted." His lips brush my ear, making my thighs clench. "Some damage can't be undone."
I think about my own damage. The memories I can't access. The parts of myself I've lost. The promise to Nico I've shattered into pieces.
"But it can grow around the damage," he continues, his hands adjusting my grip on the small shears, his touch making my skin burn. "See this scar here? Someone cut wrong years ago. The tree incorporated it. Made it part of the shape."
"That's what we do," I murmur, hyperaware of his erection pressing against me. "We grow around our damage."
"If we're lucky."
We stand there, his arms around me, both of us focused on this fragile thing that connects him to his dead brother. But Ican't stop noticing how perfectly I fit against him, how my body molds to his like we were carved from the same stone.
This is dangerous. This domestic sweetness, this careful tending of growing things. This is how I lose myself completely.
My stomach growls, loud and undeniable, breaking the spell.
He laughs. Actually laughs. "When did you last eat?"
"I don't remember."
"That's unacceptable." He kisses my temple, the gesture so tender it makes my eyes burn. "There's a kitchen down the hall. For this wing. I'll make something."
"You cook?"
"Mikhail and I used to cook together at the lakehouse when our father…" He stops, jaw tightening. "When we wanted to get away from everything. I'll grab something from the kitchen. Twenty minutes."
He kisses me quick and leaves. The door clicks behind him, but I notice no sound of the lock engaging. He's left it unlocked.
