Silence stretched between us as I considered everything he was saying.
“You don’t trust her?” I finally asked.
“I don’t trust coincidences. And this situation has too many of them for it to look accidental.”
My voice turned low. “Drop it. I don’t want to hear of this again.”
Lukyan’s eyes hardened. “I am just looking out for you, Avgust. You know I don’t want to see you suffer again.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” I asked, even though a part of me already knew.
“You are either not looking into her too closely, or you are being stupid and making the same mistake of your past once again. And I am sorry I cannot sit here idly and watch you go down a rabbit hole without doing anything about it.”
The words hit harder than a punch, and I looked away immediately. I knew exactly what he meant. Without saying anything else, the two of us made our way back to the table, resuming our seats.
Ilana finally turned to look at me, her gaze moving between Lukyan and me.
“Are you okay?” she asked me with a small smile.
“Perfect,” I replied, bending down to place a kiss on her forehead.
For the rest of the dinner, I stayed quieter. But my attention never left Ilana. Everything Lukyan had said kept swirling through my mind, but I tried not to let it make me question anything. I watched Ilana closely, the way she slowed down in the middle of bites. I brushed her hair back when it fell into her face and listened to every breath she took, memorizing the way her laugh softened when Zhenya teased her.
I had already failed once in the past.
I was not going to fail again.
Not when the person in question was not only my wife, but a woman I had learned to love in the short time I had known her. It was a strange feeling, one I wasn’t yet ready to accept in front of her, but I already knew it was true. I needed to keep her close, and I needed to keep her safe, and I needed to remind myself that she was not the enemy. She had never been. Everyone took their sweet time with dinner, but it was finally over, and I grabbed Ilana’s hand the moment she stood up from her chair.
“Ready to go home?” I whispered in her ear, and she nodded.
“More than you can imagine.”
I smiled, already thinking about what it would feel like to be wrapped in her arms as she melted in my embrace.
***
The drive home was quiet. City lights blurred past the windshield, reflections skating across the glass. Ilana sat curled in her seat, slightly turned towards me, her hand resting in my lap as I held her hand, thumb tracing slow, absent circles. A part of me had been trying to outrun this conversation, but it had caught up with me anyway. I always knew I would tell her eventually, but telling her tonight wasn't on my agenda. Not until Lukyan had reminded me of it. I finally glanced at her, noticing her gaze was already on me.
“I need to tell you something,” I finally said before I lost the courage.
She straightened up in her seat. “What is it?”
I exhaled, long and heavy.
“There was a woman in my life before you.”
Her body stilled, but she didn’t say anything; she simply kept looking at me. I had never asked her about her past, and she had never asked me about mine. This conversation was not easy for me, but I wanted her to know everything about the man she had married.
“Who was she?” she finally asked, prompting me to continue.
“She was someone I really cared for and loved, but this was all a very long time ago,” I continued. “Before things were… this bad.”
I didn’t look at her as I spoke, not sure what I would find in her eyes. Her gaze was expressive, and she did not know how to conceal her emotions. I watched the road ahead, as if it might fracture beneath us at any second.
“What do you mean?” Ilana asked.
“She wasn’t a part of this world. My world. And she didn’t even want to be. She was innocent and did not have a single Bratva bone in her body. And I was stupid enough to think that I could keep it that way. That I could keep her separated from it all.” My mouth twisted. “But I was wrong. Very, very wrong.”
