The words settle over me softly.
It’s true.
Life always felt like survival before him. Gray. Hard edges. Something to get through. Then Maksim happened.
Violence and madness and a man with too much power and not enough sense.
And somehow, with him, the world stopped looking so dull.
“There’s hope with him,” I whisper, and the thought still feels strange enough to smile at. “Which is insane, considering who we’re talking about.”
I take a breath.
“He came for me.” My fingers curl against the stone. “And I knew he would.”
That’s the part that matters. The simplest part. The one my whole body understood before my mind could catch up.
“Iknewhe’d come.”
I smooth my palm over her name and blink hard once.
“I left him,” I admit. “I was trying to protect him, or myself—my heart. I don’t know. I keep thinking if I’d stayed, none of it would’ve happened.” I swallow. “But that’s not true, is it? Men like Gabriel or Arsen don’t wait for perfect timing. They take what they can.”
My voice goes flat on his name.
The memory comes back sharp anyway—darkness, bars, thirst, blood, the wet choke in that guard’s throat when I stabbed him.
My stomach turns, but not with guilt.
A humorless breath leaves me.
“I killed people.”
The words hang there. More honest. More mine.
“More than one person thanks to Gabriel.” I let out the smallest laugh under my breath, because of course that’s the part of this that sounds absurd said out loud at my mother’s grave. “It was survival. And I’d do it again.”
The cemetery stays quiet. No judgment, no lightening strikes.
“I think you probably already knew that about me.” My fingers trace the edge of the stone. “You tried to keep me away from the violence. I know you did. But I still saw it. I stillfeltit.”
My throat feels raw.
“I’m sorry if I’m not who you wanted me to be.” I pause, then shake my head a little. “No. That’s not right.”
I draw in a slow breath.
“I think you’d be proud of me.” My voice comes quieter, but steadier too. “I’m strong.Youmade me strong. Every time I ever felt weak, I thought of you.”
I shift on the grass, wincing where my side still pulls if I move too fast. Better than it was, but not gone.
I know even from the bike Maksim notices. He notices everything now. The slight catch in my breath. The way I press a hand to my stomach if I stand too fast. The nights I wake up suddenly and don’t know where I am for half a second. He notices and goes quiet around it. More careful.
He thinks I don’t see that.
I do.
I see all of it.
