“If he believes he can reach my daughter,” Papa says calmly, “then we will show him precisely how mistaken he is.”
Dmitri stands. “I’ll double her security.”
“I don’t need—”
“Yes,” Roman says at the same time.
I turn to glare at him. “I am not a porcelain doll.”
His mouth tilts slightly. Not amused. Something else. Something possessive. “No,” he agrees. “You’re not.” His voice lowers, just enough that it feels like it belongs only to me. “But that does not mean I will let anyone touch what is ours.”Ours.
Papa rises slowly from his chair, the decision already sealed in his expression. When he stands, the room adjusts around him automatically.
“This ends now,” he says. “One way or another.”
Chairs scrape softly against the floor. Dmitri reaches for his phone. Mikhail is already thinking three steps ahead. Roman stays close enough that I can feel the heat of him without him touching me.
Then his fingers brush the inside of my wrist. Barely there. A question. I look up at him. His eyes search mine, not for weakness, but to make sure I’m still okay. “I’m fine,” I whisper. “I just want this to be over,” I add, my voice smaller than I intend. “I want to forget it all happened and just breathe for a little while. I want to be normal.” The word feels childish the moment it leaves my mouth.
Papa stops. He turns back to me slowly, and for once there is no calculation in his face. No strategy. Just something rawer.He steps toward me and cups my cheek in his palm. His hand is warm. Steady. Familiar. “You will never be normal,” he says quietly. “You are Anastasiya Dragunov. That will never change.”
My chest tightens.
“But what will change,” he continues, his thumb brushing just beneath my eye, “starting today, is your life.”
I shake my head faintly. “I don’t understand.”
His hand falls, but he doesn’t step away. “I was wrong,” he says. The words land harder than any threat Orlovsky made. The room stills. “I should never have promised you to someone without your consent. Your heart is not a contract. It is not leverage.”
My breath catches. “After your mother betrayed us, I became cold,” he says, voice low and controlled, though I can hear the strain beneath it. “Hard. I told myself it was necessary. That sentiment was weakness.”
His gaze shifts, not just to me, but to Mikhail. To Dmitri. “I should have raised you differently. All of you.” Dmitri looks down. Mikhail’s jaw tightens almost imperceptibly. Papa looks back at me. “Anastasiya, you will have the world in whatever way you want it. Do you understand me? I do not expect obedience. I do not expect sacrifice. I expect nothing.” My throat burns. “I only want you to be happy.”
The words undo something inside me. For years I have carried expectation like armor. Like inheritance. And now he is setting it down at my feet. I don’t think. I just move. I stand and step into him, wrapping my arms around his waist, holding him tighter than I have since I was a child. He hesitates for half asecond. Then his arms close around me. His chin rests briefly against the top of my head.
Behind him, I see Roman watching us. Not intruding. Not speaking. But something in his expression shifts, like he is witnessing a piece of me he hadn’t been allowed to see before.
Papa pulls back slightly, keeping his hands on my shoulders. “You are not currency,” he says quietly. “Not to me. Not to this family.”
My eyes sting. “I don’t know what to do with that.”
He almost smiles. Almost. “You live,” he says. “You choose. And we stand behind you.”
Roman steps closer then, not interrupting, but present. Steady. Papa notices. His gaze flicks between us. And this time, when he looks at Roman, it is not with strategy. It is with understanding.
“Thank you,” I say, my voice still unsteady from everything he just gave back to me. From everything he just released.
Papa’s hands remain on my shoulders. The words sit in my chest like a live wire. If I don’t say them now, I never will. “Then what I want,” I continue, forcing myself not to look at Roman yet, because if I do I might lose my nerve, “is to stay here.” My throat tightens. “With Roman,” I finish softly. “If he wants me.”
I finally turn to find that Roman hasn’t moved. Not a step. But something in him has. His shoulders go rigid first. Then his jaw. Then his eyes, dark and unreadable for one terrible second.
“If?” he repeats quietly.
Heat floods my face. “I’m not assuming.”
He closes the distance in three long strides. His hands settle on my waist. “You think this is something I would hesitate over?” he asks, low enough that the words feel like they slide under my skin instead of through the air.
My pulse jumps. “You didn’t say—”
