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After a while, the room settles. Everyone waits for what I’ll say next. A hundred reporters’ eyes are fixed on me, and through those eyes, millions more of their readers and viewers will soon be looking on at the grim mess my life has become.

As for me? I’m looking only at Kirill.

“Elena was dying,” I explain. “She had developed a terminal case of acute myeloid leukemia. We tried everything. It was not enough.”

The room has gone still. Even the reporters have stopped shouting.

“When the outcome became clear, she asked me to help her end it on her own terms. She refused to die slowly in front of our boy.”

Kirill’s face has gone white.

“I told her no. For weeks, I told her no. I begged her to keep fighting. I would have done anything to keep her with me for one more day, one more hour, one more breath. But she was tired. And in the end, I loved her too much to make her suffer for my sake.

“My wife, with her dying wish, asked me to protect our son from the truth. She made me promise that he would never know shechoseto leave him. I kept that promise for eighteen years.” I pause for a long, long breath. “I failed her in so many ways while she was alive. This was the one promise I could keep. Now, I’m done keeping it. Not to save myself—but because my son deserves to know his mother loved him enough to leave before he had to watch her wither away.”

Kir turns and starts shoving through the crowd toward the exit. I watch him go—my son, my blood, my greatest failure—and I don’t try to stop him. He needs time. He’s just had eighteen years of hatred ripped out from under him, and I can’t expect him to process that in the span of a press conference.

But there’s someone else who needs to hear what I have to say next.

It’s Rae’s turn now. She’s standing near the back of the room, her face streaked with tears, her body twisting back and forth as she watches Kirill disappear through the doors. I can see the war playing out across her features—should she follow him out? Stay here? Run from both of us?

I don’t give her time to decide.

I lean into the microphone. “I have one more message. To the woman I tried to push away because I was terrified of losing someone again… I’m done being afraid.”

Rae freezes. Her eyes meet mine across the sea of bodies, and I see everything I’ve been running from reflected back at me.

“I spent eighteen years convinced that loving someone was the worst thing I could do to them. Elena’s death proved it. I watched the light leave her eyes and I swore I’d never let anyone that close to me again.

“Then you, Rae Everett, walked into my life. I tried to push you away. I told you that you were nothing to me and I treated you as such. I lied, because I thought the kindest thing I could do was make you hate me.”

Those brown eyes, wet with tears, still watching me.

“I was wrong. The kindest thing I can do is tell the truth: that I love you, Rae. And if you’ll let me keep you, then I swear to you this: I’ve got you. I’ve got you. I’ve got you.”

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RAE

ASSOCIATED PRESS — PHOTO WIRE

Photographer: Maria Freeman | AP Staff

Caption: Lukas Lazarev, 60, embraces an unidentified woman moments after delivering a public statement at the 20th Precinct in New York on Sunday, Dec. 21, 2025.

(AP Photo/M. Freeman)

USAGE: Cleared for worldwide distribution.

Mayhem. Cameras and lights. Screams and shouts. Questions, questions, questions.

And underneath it all…

I’m done being afraid.

If you’ll let me keep you…

I’ve got you.