“I could not do it.” My head shakes from the memory. “So Konstantin took the punishment for me. I was always a failure in our father’s eyes.”
“No.” Her emotions twist in her features as she curls her body closer to mine, arms wrapping around me like she’s trying to shield me from something she never could. “You’re not a failure. He was.” Her hand holds my cheek, and I ache for it. “He wasn’t a father to you. That’s not love.”
I lean into her touch, like I’m surrendering into something bigger. “I swore if I ever had children, I would never be like him.Never raise my hand, never make love something they had to earn by bleeding for it.”
I pause, pressing my forehead to hers, breathing her in like she’s the only thing tethering me to the present.
“You’re the only person I’ve ever told that to.”
“Why me?” she asks, barely above a whisper.
“Because I think…you’re the only person I’ve ever trusted to hold it.”
Tears fill her eyes as she rises on her feet and presses a kiss to my mouth. “I’m so sorry.”
My palm slides into the back of her neck, gripping tight. “There’s nothing to be sorry for.” I kiss her temple. “This is the life I had, and I accepted it a long time ago. But what I can’t accept…is you continuing to think I don’t care.”
A small inhale shudders through her.
“I did push you away, yes, but only out of necessity. More for my own survival. Or for the survival of the man I thought I had to be.”
“And now?”
I pull back just enough to see her face, my fingers sliding through her hair. “Now, I don’t know what our future looks like. I don’t know if we even get one. But I want to try. I want you to tell me you want that too, moya ptichka.”
A smile appears through her tears. “This whole thing is crazy, and I don’t know how the hell we can make it work, but I want to. I want you, Aleksei.”
My chest tightens in a way I can’t explain.
I’m used to violence. Power. Revenge. But not this. Not the hope that I have a future.
She stares at me like she’s seeing past the darkness, and my lips meet hers softly, carefully. Like she’s breakable and I’m learning how not to destroy everything I touch.
“What does moya ptichka mean?” she asks as she pulls away.
I brush a damp strand of hair from her face. “It means my little bird.”
She tilts her head. “Why that?”
“Because you’re the only thing I’ve ever wanted to cage and set free at the same time.”
Her eyes glisten. “That’s beautiful. And a little terrifying.”
“I’m not a good man, Fiona.” My knuckles slope down her cheek. “But you make me want to be.”
She lays her head against my chest, right over the scars, and I hold her there, wondering if this is what it feels like to be forgiven for sins you haven’t stopped committing.
I want to tell her I’m falling in love with her. But the words don’t come. Not yet. The ghosts in my head still whisper too loud.
But maybe…she’s the one who will silence them.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
FIONA
Aleksei kneelsin front of me, towel in hand. The cotton is soft against my skin, but it’s the way he touches me that steals the air from my lungs. Slow, purposeful, like every part of me matters.
Neither of us speaks. We don’t need to. There’s a silence between us that hums with understanding, like something unspoken has shifted and we both felt it. I watch the movement of his hands as he dries the water from my thighs, my stomach, my arms, taking his time like he’s savoring this.
