Instead, I inhale slowly, filling my lungs before releasing the breath. The way I’ve always done before a difficult sequence, before a moment that demands everything I have left.
“What you do,” I say quietly, “it’s dangerous…”
He doesn’t deny it. “Yes.”
That honesty sends a shiver through me. I don’t need details to understand what danger means in his world. I’ve already seen the edges of it. Felt it. Smelled it. I know there are parts of hislife I’ll never be allowed to witness directly, rooms I won’t enter, decisions I won’t be invited into.
I also know what danger looks like when it wears a polite smile and waits until no one’s watching.
“I’d be tying myself to that,” I continue. “To you. To your enemies. To things I don’t understand and might never understand.”
“You’d be protected from it,” he says. “By me. Because of me. When you marry Bratva, you become part of the family.”
I close my eyes, imagining two futures side by side.
In one, I leave. I go back to my apartment, back to physical therapy and polite sympathy and quiet pity. Back to a company that will replace me as soon as they can justify it, to directors who will call me brave in the past tense. Back to men like John who sense weakness the way sharks sense blood. To a world that will keep telling me to smile through resentment and call it resilience.
In the other, I stay.
I bind myself to a man who makes no attempt to be anything other than what he is. A man whose world is brutal and structured and unapologetic. A man who waited for me to be finished with that life before taking me from it.
I open my eyes.
Avros is watching me, like he’s already accepted whatever I choose and is prepared to build around it.
That steadiness does something to me.
“I don’t want to become someone small,” I say. “I don’t want to disappear into your life the way I disappeared into ballet.”
“You won’t,” he says immediately. “You’ll be anchored to me, not erased by me.”
The conviction in his voice makes my chest tighten.
I nod once, more to myself than to him.
“Do I have a room?” I ask.
He doesn’t reach for my hand. He simply turns and walks beside me, matching his pace to my uneven steps without comment as we cross to the stairs that lead to the mezzanine.
“Do you need help?” he asks at the foot of the stairs and I shake my headno.
I take them one at a time, holding on to the thick banister, enjoying the smooth, warm pine beneath my palm.
There are two doors leading from a wide landing space.
“Storage,” he points to the one furthest away, “and the plant room for the solar panels.” He walks to the door nearest to us and swings it open.
“This will be our room, but you can use it alone, for now.” The twitch in his jaw tells me he doesn’t love that arrangement. That it costs him. It partly thrills me and partly sends a swell of gratitude through me.
I’m not completely naive. I know he could take me, force me, bend me to his will. Break me down until there’s not enough of me left to fight compliance. But it’s clear that just isn’t who he is.
He waits for me to enter first.
The room is simple. Spacious. Furniture that looks like it was chosen for function and comfort, not aesthetics. Clean lines. Soft, warm light. Nothing overwhelming.
I step inside and turn back to him.
For a moment, neither of us moves.
