These aren’t broken children surviving a dangerous father.
They’re his legacy. Strong. Capable. Prepared for a world that shows no mercy.
The realization crashes into me like a wave. All this time, I’ve been seeing him as my captor, my inconvenient husband, the dangerous man who bought me with a contract.
When he turns and catches my eye across the kitchen, something electric passes between us. Not just attraction—though God knows that’s still humming beneath my skin—but recognition. I see the weight he carries. The fortress he’s built around his heart. The way he’s transformed his wounds into armor.
The towering, dangerous man who threatened me in hallways is the same one who kneaded dough with skilled hands and taught his son to slice vegetables with precision. Who created aweekly pizza night tradition in the middle of a life most people wouldn’t survive a day in.
I’ve been seeing him all wrong.
He’s not a monster allowing glimpses of humanity. He’s a father whose every brutal action has been to protect what’s his.
And I’m suddenly, terrifyingly aware that I’ve started to want to be one of those things worth protecting.
17
Konstantin
She doesn’t clean the flour off her dress.
Cream fabric, streaked across the hip like she’s been marked by the mess of earlier. She doesn’t care.
I’ve been watching her since she stepped into the garden.
The evening sky bleeds orange and purple beyond the glass walls as we settle at the table. My children slide into their usual places—Nikolai and Lev on one side, Alya insisting on the chair closest to Bella on the other. I take my place at the head, watching as my wife hesitates between two chairs before choosing the one to my right.
She’s learning. Finding her place. The thought satisfies something primal in me that I choose not to examine too closely.
The pizza sits on artisanal boards at the center, steam rising like an offering. Outside, the garden glows with hanging lanterns that catch in Bella’s hair when she turns. I notice these thingswithout wanting to—the way light fractures against her skin, how her fingers drum against the table edge when she’s nervous.
Like now.
“Is the wine breathing properly?” My mother’s voice cuts through the moment before it forms.
I don’t need to turn to recognize the cadence of her arrival. The children’s reactions tell me everything—Alya straightening her spine like a soldier, Nikolai rising automatically, Lev’s face splitting into a grin that rarely appears for anyone else.
“Babushka!” Lev practically launches himself at her. Always the dramatic one.
My mother stands in the entryway like she’s been carved from marble and steel. She accepts Lev’s exuberance graciously, bending slightly to receive his embrace.
“My little wolves,” she murmurs, pressing kisses to their foreheads. Her eyes—the same steel-blue shade all my children inherited—warm momentarily.
Then she straightens, and that warmth vanishes as her gaze lands on Bella.
Behind my mother stands a young woman I’ve never seen before, clutching a tray of appetizers like it might explode. Young, barely twenty, with downcast eyes and trembling hands. Oleg, my head of household staff for fifteen years, follows closely behind, his expression tightening at the girl’s obvious inexperience.
“Set those down, girl,” my mother commands without looking back. “Not on the edge—center of the table.”
The unfamiliar maid jolts forward, nearly tripping. The tray wobbles dangerously.
Bella moves without hesitation, rising to steady the tray before it can topple.
“I’ve got it, Anya,” she says softly to the girl. “Take your time.”
I make a mental note to review our staffing procedures. Oleg knows better than to put untrained help on dinner service—particularly when my mother is visiting. I take a sip of the wine, letting the bold notes of the 2009 Bordeaux smooth over my irritation.
My mother’s eyebrow lifts a fraction of an inch—her version of open disapproval.
