"You came," she said, and there was genuine surprise in it. Like she'd been worried I wouldn't. "I'm so glad."
She looked so young. We were close in age—she was maybe a year younger—but standing there in cloud pajamas with her hand on her pregnant belly, she looked impossibly soft. Vulnerable in a way that made me want to protect her, even though she was married to one of the most dangerous men in New York.
"I almost didn't," I admitted, because apparently my mouth had decided honesty was the only option.
"I almost didn't invite you," she admitted right back, and somehow that made everything easier. We were both scared. Both taking risks with our vulnerability.
She stepped aside, and I got my first real look at the nursery.
My throat closed up.
It was perfect. Not in a pristine, magazine-spread way, but in the way that safety looks when someone makes it physical. Pale yellow walls like sunshine through hospital curtains. A daybed piled with stuffed animals that had clearly been loved, not just displayed. Bookshelves lined with picture books whose spines showed wear from repeated reading. A corner with child-sizedtable and chairs, coloring books scattered across the surface with boxes of crayons in every possible shade.
Soft rugs covered hardwood floors. Twinkle lights strung along the ceiling like indoor stars. A rocking chair by the window with a blanket draped over its back. Everything soft, gentle, designed to make the world feel less sharp.
"It's beautiful," I whispered, and my voice cracked on the second word.
Sophie took my hand. Her fingers were small, warm, steady despite the fact that I could feel her pulse racing too. "It's ours now," she said simply. "Yours and mine. If you want."
Ours.
Hearing the word made me want to cry. I'd been alone with this need for so long—the desperate craving for softness, for someone else to make decisions, for a space where I could stop calculating survival odds and just exist. Even with Kostya, there was an element of caretaking. He needed me functional enough to not add to his burden. But this—this was just for us. Two women who understood why sometimes your brain needed to be quiet, why sometimes being small was the only way to feel safe.
"I don't know how to do this," I admitted. "Be Little with someone who isn't . . ." I trailed off, not sure how to describe what Kostya was to me.
"Your Daddy?" Sophie supplied, and there was no judgment in it. Just understanding. "It's different. With Nikolai, there's always that dynamic of care and control. But this?" She gestured to the room. "This is just us. No expectations. No performance. Just two people who need the same kind of peace."
She was still holding my hand. I realized I was gripping back, probably too tight, but she didn't pull away.
"Come on," she said gently. "Let me show you everything."
She led me into the room, and the door closed behind us with a soft click. The sound felt final in the best way. Like shutting outeverything that hurt, everything that demanded I be competent and capable and functional.
The carpet was soft under my feet—I'd worn socks, no shoes, somehow knowing instinctively that this space required that kind of respect. Sophie showed me where things were with the proud efficiency of someone sharing their treasures. Art supplies in one cabinet. Puzzles in another. A basket of fidget toys that ranged from simple stress balls to complex mechanical things that clicked and spun.
"This was the first thing I bought," she said, picking up a stuffed elephant whose trunk had been worn soft from holding. "Right after Nikolai found out about my Little side. I was so scared he'd think I was broken, but he drove me to three different stores looking for the perfect stuffie."
The image of Nikolai—the Pakhan, the strategist, the man who could order deaths with a word—driving his wife around Brooklyn looking for stuffed animals made something ease in my chest.
"Kostya bought our kittens an entire PetSmart," I offered. "Like, literally everything. Beds, toys, treats. The employees were terrified."
Sophie laughed, bright and real. "They do that. These terrifying men who torture people for fun, and then they're like, 'My baby needs seventeen types of crayons, this is non-negotiable.'"
The casual way she said "torture people for fun" should have been jarring. But it wasn't. Because this was our reality—loving men who did monstrous things, finding softness in spaces between violence.
"How do you reconcile it?" I asked. "What they do versus who they are with us?"
Sophie considered this, still holding the elephant. "I don't," she said finally. "I just accept that both things are true. Nikolaihas killed people. He's also the man who reads me bedtime stories when I can't sleep. Both things. Not one or the other."
Both things. I thought about Kostya's hands—how they'd been covered in someone else's blood when I met him, how gently they'd held me last night. Both things.
"Ready to color?" Sophie asked, and the subject change was gentle but clear. This wasn't the space for heavy philosophy. This was for something simpler.
I nodded, my throat tight with emotion I couldn't name. She smiled and tugged me toward the table with its scattered art supplies, and I let myself be led.
Let myself be small.
Let myself belong.
