The words still felt foreign. Impossible. But lying here in the dark, with Keira's warmth against me and her heartbeat keeping time with mine, they also felt like the truest thing I'd ever known.
I closed my eyes and let myself drift, holding onto her like an anchor in a storm.
Chapter 22 - Keira
I knew something was different the moment Rodion came out of the study.
He'd been in there all morning with Yegor, the door closed, their voices too low to hear. I'd tried to distract myself—reading, reviewing notes from yesterday's session with Julia, staring out the window at a city that felt increasingly like a gilded cage. None of it worked.
When he finally emerged, his expression had that careful blankness I'd learned to recognize. The mask he wore when he was preparing for something dangerous.
"Tomorrow night," he said without preamble.
I set down my book. "The operation?"
"Yes."
The word landed in my chest like a stone. I'd known it was coming—we'd talked about it, planned around it, acknowledged its necessity. But knowing and feeling were different things.
"Tell me about it," I said. "The plan."
He hesitated, and I saw the debate play out behind his eyes. How much to share. How much to shield me from.
"Don't," I said before he could decide. "Don't protect me from the truth. I'd rather know."
He studied me for a moment, then nodded. "Cormac's been operating out of a bar in Queens. O'Malley's. He's there every night with six to eight men. We hit at midnight, when civilian presence is minimal."
"And Cormac?"
"He won't walk out."
The flatness of his voice should have disturbed me. This was my uncle, he was talking about—my father's brother, my own blood. But when I searched myself for grief or horror, I found only a hollow relief.
"Good," I said quietly.
Rodion's expression shifted—surprise, maybe, or reassessment. "You don't have to pretend this doesn't affect you."
"I'm not pretending. I'm being honest." I stood, moving to the window, my arms wrapped around myself. "He stood by while my father beat my mother to death. He tried to sell me to traffickers. Whatever happens to him tomorrow, he's earned it."
"That doesn't mean it's easy."
"No. But easy isn't the same as right." I turned to face him. "I stopped mourning my family a long time ago. The people who share my blood aren't my family. They never were."
He crossed the room and pulled me into his arms. I went willingly, pressing my face against his chest, breathing in the familiar scent of him.
"After tomorrow," he said against my hair, "it'll be over. At least this part of it."
"And the Petrovics?"
"One enemy at a time."
I wanted to believe him. Wanted to believe that tomorrow would bring an end to something, a beginning of something else. But I'd learned long ago that hope was a dangerous thing.
Still, I held onto him and let myself feel it anyway.
***
The rest of the day passed in a strange limbo.
