The heart monitorbeeps in a rhythm I've memorized better than my own pulse.
For three days, I’ve sat in this chair, watching the slow rise and fall of Slava Romanov's chest like it's the only channel left on television and the remote is missing. Lydia brought me a change of clothing on day two, and I've been cycling between the same two outfits like a capsule wardrobe influencer with a very niche aesthetic:hospital girlfriend chic.
Slava is alive.
But he hasn’t woken up.
The bullet missed anything critical by the kind of margin that makes surgeons use words likeluckyandremarkableand makes me want to throw up because there is nothingluckyabout the man you love getting shot.
The doctors have told me three times—because I made them repeat it until I can almost believe them—that he will make a fullrecovery, but I still won’t leave his side. Not until he wakes up and looks at me with those winter-gray eyes that I can’t lose.
My fingers rest on his chest. I can feel his steady heartbeat moving under my palm. The bandage at his left side is a new landmark added to the countless scars already dotting his body.
A story written into his skin in a language that only the two of us will ever read.
I stroke his dirty blond hair. Even now, it’s swept back, because Slava Romanov does not dodisheveled.
For three days, I replay the final moment of his consciousness over and over on loop in my head.
He loves me.
Hetoldme he loves me on a blood-soaked street in New York City, with his life leaking out between my fingers and his eyes going soft in a way I'd never seen them go soft before. And then he saidgoodwhen I said it back before his eyes shut.
I touch his jaw with my fingertip, stroke the sharp cheekbones with my thumb, and press a quick kiss on the small scar bisecting his chin.
His lips part slightly from the touch, and I swear I can hear them taking shape to saymalyshkain a voice that can melt steel.
The world outside this room has been busy for the last three days.
Nico is the Don of the D’Ambrosio Family now and he’s been quickly but efficiently ending the war with Slava before it spirals out of control. Alik negotiated on behalf of Slava with him, andless than forty-eight hours after Don Leo’s death, the guns fell silent.
Anthony is also safe.
He's staying at Slava's penthouse, and according to Lydia, he and Alessandro have already become best friends, with passionate arguments about whether T-Rex or Spinosaurus would win in a fight.
Once the war and the children were settled, Alik came by, stood in this hospital room doorway with his massive arms crossed and his face arranged in something that, on a normal person, might be recognized as discomfort.
He grunted something at me and it’d taken me almost a full five seconds to realize it was an apology.
And when I accepted his apology, he grunted again, and left.
I look at Slava's face. The bruising has faded from deep purple to a yellowish green that looks terrible but means he’s alive and healing. My hand rests on his chest and I think about how I once walked into his office all those months ago with a fake last name and a revenge plan, and I barely recognize myself.
I had been so certain of my hate for him. I treated every interaction like a chess move, carried every smile as a loaded weapon, and used every moment of proximity to extract the maximum damage while looking for a way to hurt this man that I decided was a monster.
But the monster I built in my head was never real. If he was, he wouldn’t have stood on a balcony and dared me to kiss him and then walked awayshatteringwhen I did. He wouldn’t havecarried me home in his arms after thugs tied me to a chair and put a gun in my mouth.
He wouldn’t have dove into the water to save me from drowning. He wouldn’t have warmed me up in front of a fire as hypothermia threatened to take me away from him.
And he most certainly wouldn’t have chosen to save my nephew before coming for me—because he knew that's what I would've wanted.
Because heunderstoodme that completely.
The monster I built in my head wouldn’t ever love me.
I stroke his hair one more time. His eyelids flutter for a moment, and then open—slowly at first, like someone surfacing from deep water. When they open, those familiar gray eyes are unfocused and hazy.
Then they find me and I watch recognition flicker across his face like watching a sunrise in real time.
