She swallows. “And I have a daughter to think about.”
“Our daughter,” I say gently.
Her mouth trembles. “Our daughter.”
I bring her hand to my lips and kiss her fingers. “I hope you’ll stay,” I say. “But I’ll spend as long as it takes proving you and she are safe with me.”
A tear slips down her cheek.
She doesn’t give me an answer. Not yet. But she turns her hand in mine and holds on.
EPILOGUE
SIENNA
“Putyour hands on the window and don’t move.”
Viktor says it from behind me, low and rough, and my whole body answers before my mind catches up.
Outside, the mountains are dark and endless.
The cabin sits high above the valley, tucked between pine trees and snow-covered slopes. Far from hospitals, weddings, gunfire, family, police statements, and every nightmare that tried to swallow us whole. The world beyond the glass is quiet. Moonlight lies over the snow. The fireplace burns behind us, throwing heat across the room, but the window is cold under my palms.
Viktor stands behind me, still dressed from dinner, shirt sleeves rolled to his forearms, belt already open. I can see his reflection in the dark glass. Bigger than life. Older. Dangerous. Mine.
His hands slide over my hips, then up my waist, slow and possessive. “You’ve been teasing me all night,” he says.
“I was eating dinner.”
“You were wearing this dress.”
I try not to smile. “That’s not teasing.”
His mouth brushes the side of my neck. “On you, it is.”
The dress is black, soft, and loose enough to hide the parts of my body I’m still learning to make peace with after having a baby. But Viktor has never looked at me like I’m something that needs hiding. Not once. Even now, months after everything, when my body is different and softer and marked by birth and survival, he looks at me like he wants to take his time ruining himself on it. That still gets to me.
His hand slips under the hem of the dress and moves up my thigh, and I breathe in sharply.
“There,” he says. “Already.” I close my eyes, but he catches my chin and turns my face just enough that I can see him in the reflection. “No. Watch.”
My pulse stumbles.
His fingers reach the edge of my underwear. He touches me through the fabric first, just enough pressure to make me lean forward against the glass.
“Viktor.”
“That’s not what I told you to do.”
I press my palms harder to the window.
He smiles against my throat. Then he pulls my underwear aside and slides two fingers through me.
The sound I make is embarrassing, but he likes it. I can feel that in the way his grip tightens on my hip.
“Fuck,” he says, almost to himself. “You’re soaked.”
I try to answer, but he pushes one finger inside me, and the words disappear.
