We sit together in comfortable silence for a while, and I watch her pick up her sketchbook again. She's drawing the gardens outside her window, capturing the way the morning light falls across the flowers. She's talented, always has been.
"Katya," I say, "I want you to know that things are going to be different now. You're going to go to college, study art like you've always wanted. You're going to travel and see the world. You're going to have choices."
She looks at me with hope shining in her eyes. "Really?"
"Really. I promise."
"What about you?" she asks. "What are you going to do?"
I think about the baby growing inside me, about the life I'm building with Dimitri, about the future we're fighting for. "I'mgoing to make sure you get everything you deserve. And I'm going to build something better than what we had."
She smiles, and this time it reaches her eyes. "You already have."
We spend another hour together, talking about her plans for school, about the places she wants to visit. She shows me her sketches, and I'm amazed by her talent. She's captured the estate in loving detail, but also darker images from her captivity. Art as therapy, processing trauma through creation.
When I finally stand to leave, she hugs me tightly. "Be careful tonight," she whispers. "With Mikhail. I heard the guards talking."
"I will be. Dimitri will keep me safe."
"I know. But still. Be careful."
I kiss her forehead and leave her to her sketching. As I walk back down the hallway toward my bedroom, I press a hand to my stomach again. This secret I'm carrying feels heavier with each passing moment.
I find Dimitri in our room, dressed in dark jeans and a black shirt, checking weapons with the efficiency of someone who's done this a thousand times. He looks up when I enter, and something in his expression makes my breath catch.
"It's time," he says, his voice grave. "We need to leave for the meeting with Mikhail."
38
DIMITRI
The headlights cut through the darkness as I navigate the winding road toward the abandoned monastery. In the passenger seat, Alina sits rigid, her hands clasped tightly in her lap. I can see her knuckles turning white even in the dim glow from the dashboard.
Behind us, two SUVs follow at a careful distance. Alexei leads one team, Borge the other. My best men, armed and ready. But they have strict orders to stay back unless I give the signal. Mikhail will be watching for any sign of a trap.
The monastery appears on the hilltop ahead, its ancient stone walls silhouetted against the night sky. Even crumbling and abandoned, it's imposing. The perfect location for a meeting like this. Isolated. Dramatic. Exactly Mikhail's style.
I pull off the main road onto the narrow path leading up the hill. The SUV bounces over ruts and stones, and I hear Alina's sharp intake of breath.
"We're almost there," I say, my voice low. "Remember the plan."
She nods without looking at me. "Stay close. Don't speak unless spoken to. If you give the signal, run."
"Good." I reach over and squeeze her hand briefly. Her fingers are ice cold. "Alina, look at me."
She turns, and in the darkness, her green eyes are wide with fear. But there's steel underneath. This woman who killed her own father, who faced down armed men to save her sister, who married me knowing exactly what kind of monster I am.
"You don't have to do this," I tell her. "I can still turn around. Take you back to the estate where you'll be safe."
"No." Her voice is firm. "We finish this together. That's what we agreed."
I want to tell her what I realized last night as I watched her sleep. That somewhere between the burning church and this moment, between her pulling a gun on me and her standing beside me at our wedding, I fell in love with her. Completely. Irrevocably. In a way that terrifies me because it makes me vulnerable in ways I've never been before.
But the words stick in my throat. Men like me don't get to say such things, don't get to have such weaknesses. Love is a luxury I can't afford, especially not tonight.
So instead, I lift her hand to my lips and press a kiss to her knuckles. "Stay close to me. No matter what happens."
"I will."
