His eyes close. Like the words hurt.
“Again,” he says.
“Ya lyublyu tebya.”
When he opens his eyes, they’re darker. Wet.
“Do you know what you just said?” His voice is wrecked.
“Tell me.”
“I love you.” His hand presses against my stomach. “That’s what it means.Ya lyublyu tebya. I love you.”
The words crack something open inside me.
“Anton—”
“I love you,” he says again. In English this time. Raw. Honest. “I love you more than I’ve ever loved anything. More than the Bratva. More than my own life. You and this baby—you’re everything.”
Tears spill over. I can’t stop them.
“I love you too,” I whisper. “I love you so much it scares me.”
He kisses me then. Deep. Desperate. Like he’s trying to pour everything he feels into this one moment.
When we break apart, we’re both shaking.
“Two weeks,” he says against my mouth.
“Two weeks.”
“And then I’m coming home. To you. To this.”
“Ya lyublyu tebya,” I whisper.
His smile is broken and beautiful. “Ya lyublyu tebya,malyshka.”
43
Mary
Day 2 - The Empty Hours
Iwake up to nothing.
Not Anton’s arm around my waist. Not his breath against my neck. Not the rumble of his voice pulling me out of sleep with some command disguised as a request.
Just silence.
And the pillow that still smells like him.
I reach for my phone before I even open my eyes. Force of habit. Muscle memory from two days of checking, hoping, praying for something—anything—from a number I won’t recognize.
6:47 AM. Screen blank except for notifications I don’t care about.
No messages. No missed calls. Nothing.
Forty-eight hours. He’s been gone forty-eight hours.
