"Eventually. When he sees that this isn't a weakness—it's a strength."
She turned to look at me, her expression searching. "Is that what you think? That this is a strength?"
"I think having something to fight for makes you fight harder." I took her hand, lacing our fingers together. "I spent years fighting for territory, for money, for the family name. None of it felt like it mattered. Not really. But this—" I squeezed her hand. "This matters."
"Rodion..." She shook her head. "I don't know if I can be what you need. I don't know if I can be a mob wife, or whatever it is I'm supposed to be now. I've spent my whole life running from this world, and now I'm in the middle of it, and I don't know how to—"
"You don't have to be anything," I cut in. "You don't have to fit into some mold or play some role. You just have to be you. That's enough."
"What if it's not?"
"It is." I reached up, cupped her face in my hands. "Keira, I don't care about what you can do for me strategically. I don't care about alliances or leverage or any of that. I care about you. The woman who saw through my bullshit from day one. The woman who's stronger than anyone I've ever met. The woman who makes me want to be better than I am."
Her eyes were bright, and I saw the emotion she was trying to hold back. "I'm starting to imagine a life here," she admitted quietly. "With you. And that terrifies me."
"Why?"
"Because the last time I let myself imagine a future, it got ripped away from me. My mother. My career. Everything I built." She took a shaky breath. "I don't know if I can survive losing something again."
"You won't lose me."
"You can't promise that."
"No," I admitted. "I can't promise that nothing bad will ever happen. I can't promise that our enemies won't find a way to hurt us. But I can promise that whatever happens, you won't face it alone. I will be there, right beside you, fighting for you, fighting with you. Always."
She stared at me for a long moment, and I watched the war playing out behind her eyes—hope against fear, trust against experience. I didn't push. Just waited.
"Okay," she said finally.
"Okay?"
"Okay." She smiled, small but real. "I'm not ready to make grand declarations. I'm not ready to say the things you want me to say. But I'm here. I'm staying. And I'm going to try to believe that this could actually work."
"That's all I'm asking."
I kissed her then, soft and slow, nothing like the desperate passion of the night before. This was something else. A promise. A beginning.
When we finally pulled apart, she leaned her forehead against mine.
"What happens now?" she asked.
"Now we wait. We let Kirill and Demyan do what they do best. We stay together, stay safe, and we deal with whatever comes." I pulled back to look at her. "And tonight, I'm cooking you dinner. A real dinner, not just pasta from whatever's in the fridge."
"A third date?"
"Something like that."
She laughed, and the sound of it filled something in my chest I hadn't realized was empty.
"I'd like that," she said.
"Good."
I held her hand, and we sat together on the edge of the bed, looking out at the city that had been my home my whole life. Somewhere out there, Cormac was plotting, the Petrovics were planning, and a hundred dangers were circling like sharks.
But right here, right now, none of that mattered.
For the first time in as long as I could remember, I had something worth protecting.
