I never wanted this.
I never wanted to have to choose between Maksim or Leo. My lover or my child.
It isn’t even a fair equation. The answer is obvious and automatic. Leo. My baby, my blood, the one I birthed and promised to protect, the little boy who has clung to my leg when he was scared more times than I can count, or curled up in my arms every night for seven years, who made me believe I could keep going.
He comes first. Always.
And yet…
And yet the thought of losing Maksim makes my heart shrivel up in my chest. I’ve mourned him once already. I thought I’d buried him years ago. I thought I’d moved on. But now that he’s here, alive and mine again… how can I bury him twice?
I tell myself the truth I don’t want to face—that I could manage and do it all over again. I could live through his death another time. It would kill another part of me, yes, but I could do it for the sake of my baby.
People survive grief all the time. Women have survived worse.
But if I chose him over Leo, if I condemned my son to death to save my lover, that’s not a wound that would ever close. That’s rot that would eat me from the inside out and damn my soul for eternity.
There’s no “you can have another one” in this regard. There are no replacements for a child you willingly killed. No balm for a mother’s betrayal at the highest order.
So I know what I have to do. And still, I die a little with the knowing.
That night,I take Maksim to bed like it’s the last time.
Because… well, it is.
I savor every second—the press of his mouth over every part of me, the strength of his hands as he lifts me and moves me around, the weight of him on top of me. I memorize his eyes softening when I gasp his name, the way hisjaw clenches when he fights to hold back his own release until he’s sure I’ve unraveled first. He gives me all of him, every raw ounce, and it’s the best sex I’ve ever had in my life.
I cry in his arms afterward, burying my face in his chest so he won’t see the truth behind the tears.
“I just miss Leo,” I whisper to keep up the façade, and it isn’t even a lie. I do miss my baby. But the sobs racking me aren’t just for my son. They’re for the man I’m about to give up in order to get my boy back.
Maksim strokes my hair, his touch slow and soothing. He murmurs against the crown of my head. “We’ll get him back… I swear it to you. No matter what it takes.”
The words pierce me, cruel in their tenderness.
He has no idea what’s coming.
No idea that his lover is the knife at his throat.
The date arrives fasterthan I want it to.
I wake with dread thick in my stomach, but I force myself through the motions. Breakfast, shower, fresh clothes, makeup that I steal from Katya’s beauty bag in the bathroom. I smile when I’m greeted, I swallow back the bile when I want to scream.
When Maksim asks what I want to do today, I seize the chance because losing my nerve will get us all killed. “Take me out to eat. I have a place in mind. I just… want to forget about all of this mess for a few hours.”
He studies me for a long moment, then nods without another sign of hesitation. “Of course. Tell me where and I’ll book the table.”
It unsettles me how easily he agrees.
A small, ugly part of me wonders if he’s relieved for the excuse to get out of the motel too. How ironic that it will be his last time doing anything on this Earth ever again.
I suggest the address that Mikhail had told me about, and the time. It’s an expensive upscale restaurant further into the city. The kind with valet parking and a team of hostesses that greet you at the door.
Maksim doesn’t even blink, just pulls out his phone and makes a reservation. A private table for just us.
Getting ready feels surreal.
I slip into a dress Maksim bought me a while ago, silk brushing over my skin in a way that feels both luxurious and wrong. He adjusts his cufflinks in the mirror as I’m finishing my hair, immaculate even in simplicity. He looks like the man I used to imagine when I closed my eyes at night back when I still thought he was dead—untouchable and powerful and all mine.
