"You are dangerous. Trust me."
She smiles slightly, then heads for the shower. I return to my study for a video call with Sergei at 10:00 AM—final securityarrangements for Lincoln Center. Positioning, contingencies, coordination with Alexei's teams and federal contacts.
"Six days," Sergei says. "Everything's in place. Your men, Alexei's men, FBI tactical units on standby. Anton won't just face you—he'll face an army."
"Good. Walk me through the final positioning."
We spend the next hour reviewing every detail. By 11:00 AM, I'm satisfied. We are as ready as we can be.
I head downstairs to find Sonya for late breakfast—and stop in the dining room doorway.
She's sitting at the table, surrounded by papers. Papers I recognize immediately because I haven't looked at them in fifteen years. Papers that live in a filing cabinet in my study that should have been locked.
Was locked, until recently. Until I started opening things to her. Gradually. Literally and metaphorically.
Elena's foundation documents.
"Sonya—" My voice comes out rougher than intended.
I can't move. Can't enter the room. Can only stare at the papers spread across my dining table—Elena's handwriting, her dreams, her plans for a foundation that would help at-risk dancers access professional training. Scholarship programs. Trauma counseling. Safe pathways to careers for dancers from difficult backgrounds.
She'd started planning it six months before she died and was going to launch it after our daughter was born.
Neither of those things happened.
Sonya touches the papers gently, reverently. "This is beautiful, Maksim. She thought of everything. She was going to change lives."
"She was." I finally enter the room, sit down across from her. "She wanted to help dancers who'd experienced violence or poverty. Give them chances she'd had. She was—" My voice cracks. "She was so excited about it. Spent hours planning."
"Why didn't you continue it?"
The question I've been asking myself for fifteen years.
"I couldn't." The admission hurts. "After she died, I couldn't look at it. Couldn't bear to see her dreams written in her handwriting, knowing she'd never see them realized. It felt like failing her twice—once by not protecting her, and again by not fulfilling her dream."
Sonya sets the documents down carefully. Studies me across the table.
"Let me complete what she started."
Something breaks in me.
Not gently. Not with warning. Just—breaks.
I'm crying before I realize it's happening. Full sobbing, shoulders shaking, fifteen years of carrying Elena's unfulfilled dreams suddenly too heavy to bear alone.
First time crying since Elena's funeral. This is release. Permission. Grief that's been locked away so long it's fossilized.
Sonya is around the table immediately, pulling me into her arms. I bury my face in her stomach, holding her waist, sobbing like I haven't since the day we buried Elena and our daughter together.
"I failed her," I choke out. "Failed them both. Couldn't protect them, couldn't find him for fifteen years, couldn't even finish her dream—"
"Stop." Sonya's hands are in my hair, gentle and firm. "You survived. You kept searching. You never gave up. And you found me—found the connection that led to Anton's name. That's not failure. That's persistence. And her dream can still be real. It will be real." She kneels in front of me, taking my face in her hands, forcing me to meet her eyes. "You're continuing her dream. She would want this. She would want someone to finish what she started."
She kisses my forehead, my cheeks, tasting my tears. "We'll call it the Morozov-Petrov Foundation. Both families. Honoring her vision and building our future together."
"Morozov-Petrov," I repeat, the name settling something in my chest.
"Elena's dream, brought to life." Sonya stands, pulling me up with her. "Now come here. Let me show you something."
