The thought of holding her again is a gravity I can barely resist.
“I wish,” I admit, brushing my lips against her temple. “But I have to update my brothers. I’ll be back as soon as I can. I promise.”
She sighs, curling into me like she belongs there. I carry her into the room, feeling the weight of everything pressing against my shoulders, and lay her down on the bed. My mouth finds hers. The kiss is slow, deep, almost reverent. When I finally pull back, my breath catches between us.
Her eyes meet mine.
And in that frozen second, I feel it hit me—quiet but brutal.
I’m in too deep.
In this war.
In her.
In a love I never intended to survive.
Chapter 22 – Vivian
Rain pounds against the windows like the sky is grieving with us. It’s been falling since Kyle died, and it hasn’t stopped—not once. The whole house feels swollen with it: fear, exhaustion, and something rawer sitting thick in the air, refusing to let me breathe.
I haven’t spoken much. I can’t.
Every time I blink, I see it again—Dimitri covered in blood, his arms locked around me, the bodyguard’s corpse lying only a few feet away.
What haunts me isn’t the violence.
It’s the way it felt right to be held by him in that moment.
The way my first instinct wasn’t to recoil but to grab his shirt, bury my face in him, and whisper his name like he was the only safe thing left in the world.
He told me he had to work and that he’d come back when he was done. But he hasn’t returned.
And I’ve been unable to sleep.
My body feels wired, my mind replaying everything on a loop—his voice, his hands, the gunshot, the blood. The way he looked at me as if losing me would’ve been the real tragedy.
I pull my knees to my chest and stare at the door, listening for footsteps.
Nothing.
Just the rain and the quiet ache of waiting.
I can’t lie here anymore. The waiting is driving me insane.
If Dimitri won’t come back yet, then I’ll go to him. Maybe he’s in the study. Maybe he just needed space to think, or to strategize, or to calm down after everything that happened.
I pull on a sweater and slip out of the room, padding down the hallway with the rain still echoing through the walls.The house feels too big, too quiet, like it’s holding its breath with me.
When I reach the study, I try the handle.
Locked.
My stomach dips.
He wasn’t working in here.
He left the house.
