One Year Later
Spring in Vienna smells like forgiveness.
The world thaws in uneven strokes, and the café terrace hums with the kind of laughter that doesn’t know ghosts. Or maybe it knows them and laughs anyway.
I sit with my laptop open, sunlight dripping over my hands as if trying to gild me. It never quite manages to make me look like someone untouched by the darker parts of the world, but it tries, and I let it. The keys are warm under my fingertips, the cursor blinking with the impatience of a child tugging a sleeve.
Across from me, Damian is pretending he’s not melting under Alexander’s weight.
Our son sprawls lazily against his father’s chest, tiny hands fisting Damian’s shirt, drooling with absolute disregard for the man who once terrified entire underworld councils with a single raised brow.
Now? Alexander has claimed him like a small, chubby conqueror who smells faintly of milk and triumph.
Damian doesn’t resist. He wants to, but I know he can’t.
I try to focus on the sleek, sharp lines of code in front of me, winding into the beginnings of some legal jargon. Our cybersecurity startup is still a baby too, just a few months old, born in tandem with Alexander. Born from the same yearning for a future that doesn’t require blood offerings.
We’ve chosen new names that sit strangely on our tongues but settle warmly over our lives.
My passport now calls me Eva Vetrova, a nod for old times’ sake.
Damian had raised a brow when I had shown him my passport.
“You are a creature of sentiment,” he had remarked fondly.
“It’s called humor, actually,” I had replied haughtily.
Damian is Markus Adler, a man who might calmly fix a roof leak instead of being the sole heir of a crime syndicate. He is trying very hard to live up to that.
“Your face is doing the thing again,” I say, sipping my coffee. It’s rich and velvety, the kind of coffee that should only be sipped slowly. I fail that rule every time.
Damian lifts his eyes.
“What thing?”
“The thing where you pretend you’re not watching me and watching me at the same time.”
He smirks, caught.
“Your focus is attractive. Distracting.”
I arch a brow.
“My focus is on writing code for firewall reinforcement protocols.”
“Still distracting.”
Alexander shrieks a single delighted note, as if casting his vote in the matter. Damian shifts him higher, kissing the top of his head. The gesture is… soft for a man once sculpted entirely out of tension and quiet violence.
Spring has softened him more than Moscow’s winter ever could.
I glance around the café. It’s a quaint and romantic place with its small tables, ironwork chairs, and tulips hanging from planters with shameless optimism.
Spring has slithered in like a fresh confession. Couples stroll past with pastries, tourists take pictures of buildings older than half the countries in Europe, and children chase pigeons with unearned confidence.
No one looks at us twice. No one squints or whispers or tries to place a face from a news article.
Our past is a folded map we’ve shoved into a drawer no one opens.
