"You might," he agreed. "But I don't think you will."
"Why not?"
He set the spoon down, took my hands again. Both of them this time, engulfing them in his warmth and steadiness.
"Because you're tired of running. Because you want Brand stopped as much as we do. And because—" He paused, thumbs moving over my knuckles again. "Because being protected doesn't have to mean being controlled."
I wanted to argue, to point out all the ways protection became possession, help became manipulation. But sitting there with food in my stomach for the first time in days, with my hands steady in his, with the echo of tears finally shed still raw in my chest, I couldn't find the words.
"Rest," he said, standing finally but not releasing my hands yet. "Real rest. Sleep. Tomorrow we'll figure out this mess. Tonight, just let yourself be safe."
"I don't know how to do that," I admitted.
"Then I'll show you." He squeezed my hands once, then let go. "I'll be right outside if you need anything."
"You're going to guard my door?"
"Of course."
"That's not necessary—"
"It is," he interrupted. "For my peace of mind, if not yours."
He moved toward the door, massive frame navigating the furniture with that surprising grace. At the threshold, he turned back.
"Thank you," he said. "For trusting me enough to eat. For telling me about Maria. For letting me see you cry."
Then he was gone, door closing softly behind him, and I was alone with a stomach full of food and a chest full of something I couldn't name. Something that felt dangerously like hope.
Chapter 7
Konstantin
Sleepwasnotforme.
I lay in my bed staring at nothing, counting the tick of the grandfather clock. I felt like I was waiting, though I didn’t no for what. Two-seventeen AM. The monster in my chest turned over, restless, still hungry. Always hungry.
My shoulder throbbed where Brand's man had put a bullet. The knife wound in my side pulled with every breath. But pain was telling me that lying here pretending to sleep was pointless.
I rolled out of bed, bare feet silent on the cold floor. The compound was quiet at this hour, just the hum of security systems and the occasional creak of old wood settling. Everyone else could sleep after bloodshed. Nikolai with Sophie curled against him, Maks probably still working but calm, focused. Normal people who could compartmentalize violence, file it away, move on.
Not me. Violence lived in my bones, sang through my blood, kept me walking the halls like a ghost who didn't know he was dead yet.
The kitchen first—muscle memory from hundreds of sleepless nights. I didn't turn on the lights, navigating by the green glow of the microwave clock and the moonlight through bulletproof glass. Water from the tap, cold enough to shock my throat. I drank three glasses, trying to wash away the taste of someone else's fear.
Then I heard it—a small sound from the utility room. Scratching.
The kittens.
I found them where I'd left them, in the cardboard box lined with my oldest t-shirt. Zmeya was awake, orange fur standing up as he tried to climb the box walls with claws the size of rice grains. His brother Malysh stayed curled in the corner, one gray paw over his nose, purring in his sleep like the world was safe and warm and full of tuna.
"Shh," I told Zmeya, lifting him out with one hand. His claws dug into my palm, but it was reflex, not real aggression. "You'll wake your brother."
Zmeya mewed—high, demanding. Hungry already, though I'd fed them at ten. I carried him to the kitchen, found the kitten formula.
It felt good to see them get slowly stronger. It was insane, but I cared for them. They were survivors.
I understood the impulse to rescue things that shouldn't survive. Maybe because I shouldn't have survived half the things I'd been through, but here I was anyway, warming kitten formula at two-thirty in the morning like some kind of domesticated sociopath.
