She smiled then, a genuine smile that transformed her face and made something in my chest constrict. Without thinking, I reached for the washcloth hanging nearby, dipped it in the warm water, and began gently washing her leg.
She tensed momentarily, then relaxed into my touch. The simple act felt strangely intimate—more intimate in some ways than when we’d had sex. And God, her legs were sexyas hell, but this wasn’t about desire, at least not totally. This was about being in the moment. About care. About tenderness I hadn’t known I possessed.
The contradiction wasn’t lost on me. Perhaps this gentleness had always existed within me, dormant and waiting for someone worthy of receiving it.
As I continued with the other leg, I felt something shift in me. The steam swirled around us like a protective barrier, creating a sanctuary—a safe space with just the two of us.
“You were eight years old when you saved my life,” I said quietly, my voice barely audible above the occasional drip from the faucet.
Her body went absolutely still under my hands. Her eyes, when they met mine, were simmering with emotions.
“You knew?” she whispered.
I set the washcloth aside and focused fully on her. “I know it was you. You reported it to the authorities halfway across the world. That report led to a raid that freed twenty-three children from a fighting ring. Me being one of them.”
She stared at me. “How long have you known?”
I shrugged. “I’ve known for a while. I had Grey’s file about you. From there, I found the report. You reported a URL to the authorities.” I hesitated, then continued.
Her hands emerged from the water, gripping the edges of the tub so tightly, her knuckles whitened. “So you were…were you the boy I saw? The one who was fighting?”
I shrugged, the memories rising like shadows. “There were a lot of fights. I don’t know which one you witnessed.”
“A teenager protecting younger kids,” she said, her voice distant with recollection. “There were a lot of opponents, and that boy was bleeding, but he wouldn’t stay down.”
Something cold slid down my spine. I remembered that fight with perfect clarity. Three older boys sent against me at once. A test of my progress, they’d said. I’d been sixteen, already an efficient killer, but one day, I just refused to kill again. They’d punished me severely, but I didn’t budge no matter what they did to me…until they found my weakness…Nina and Mila, two little girls, there to be slaughtered.
“That might’ve been me,” I confirmed, my voice rough.
“I never forgot how determined you looked. How…unbroken.”
A bitter laugh escaped me. “I was very broken, Shorty.”
“My God,” she whispered. Her eyes filled with tears which didn’t fall. “All these years…I always wondered if you survived. If any of you did.”
I reached for her hand again, needing the connection. “I survived. We all did, Roman, Anton, Nina, Mila, and I.”
“Holy shit, I didn’t know that,” she murmured. “So the Zotov siblings…”
“None of us is actually related by blood,” I explained. “But we’d protected each other. Formed a bond. Grey let us stay together—one of his few mercies.”
I took a deep breath. “Grey was the top dog on the raid—made it look like he was rescuing us. For fifteen years, I believed he’d saved me.” The admission felt like releasing poison from my system. “He pretended torescue us, but you’re saying he was the one who put us there in the first place?” I laughed, a hard, self-deprecating laugh.
Her grip on my hand tightened. “You couldn’t have known.”
I nodded. “I know.” But the bitterness of that betrayal still burned. “If you think about it, it’s the perfect recruitment strategy,” I said, unable to keep the bitterness from my voice. “Break children, then appear as their savior. Create trauma bonds that ensure loyalty.”
“I’m sorry, I?—”
“You were the actual reason we got out of that hellhole alive.” I let my thumb trace circles on her wrist, feeling her pulse race beneath the skin. “You saved us, Isabella. A Mafia princess who saw something wrong and had the courage to report it.”
She shook her head slightly, processing. “I was only eight. I didn’t really know what was going on. We’d just buried my grandfather that day; I’d snuck off to my grandpa’s library during the reception.”
I listened intently, noted how her voice changed as she spoke, becoming smaller, younger.
“I was hiding under a sofa, reading a book I’d taken from the shelves. Then someone came in—” She stopped abruptly, her body language shifting.
My instincts flared. “Who came in, Isabella?”
