His forehead pressed to mine, his breath uneven. “I told you I would protect you.”
I looked into his eyes, steady and bold. “And I told you I wouldn’t be afraid anymore.”
Below us, outside the broken glass, snow continued to fall, erasing footprints, covering blood. The city hummed, unaware.
With one hand resting over my stomach, I took his.
“We protect each other now,” I told him. “All of us.”
He kissed me then—not gentle, not desperate. Certain.
Christmas bells rang somewhere in the distance.
Peace, I realized, wasn’t quiet. Sometimes it was earned. And sometimes, it stained the snow with blood.
Epilogue
Maksim
Autumn
September softened the city.
Summer’s boisterous chaos faded into a heat-hazed memory, and autumn came in quieter.
Cool mornings, longer shadows, a promise of change carried on the wind. I stood by the window with my son cradled against my chest, his weight solid and warm, his breath puffing softly against my collarbone.
A boy.
Dark hair. My eyes. Sofia’s mouth.
He slept like he trusted the world and everything in it. That still startled me.
Sofia moved through the kitchen behind me, barefoot, humming under her breath as she made coffee. She looked different now—not hardened, not softened. Settled. Like a woman who had survived something terrible and come out the other side knowing exactly who she was.
The doorbell rang.
We looked at each other. “Are you expecting someone?” she asked as she eyed the door.
I shifted the baby instinctively before I even moved. It appeared old habits didn’t die; they evolved.
“Come and take him. I’ll see who it is,” I softly instructed. We had moved into the house that she had first gone to as a safe house. The one with the escape tunnel. We decided we needed more room and a place that we wouldn’t get trapped in.
“I can look through the peephole, you know,” she shot back as she rolled her eyes.
She moved like a cat, and I was unusually proud of her as I watched her cross the room. Her large smile told me it was not a threat. When she swung the door wide, I smiled as well.
Dima stood on the threshold, travel bag slung over his shoulder, suit jacket abandoned in favor of something more practical. He smiled when he saw the baby.
“So,” he quietly jested, “this is the little tyrant.”
“He is sleeping,” I replied. “Say nothing that might change that.”
Dima laughed under his breath and stepped inside. He looked around—really looked. The light. The softness. The absence of men with guns.
“You remodeled,” he observed with a smirk.
“Yes.” We’d had to. The other men Boris had hired to go after Sofia had trashed the house looking for clues to where they’d gone. Thankfully, they never uncovered the secret escape passage.
