"No." His answer is immediate. "I think you make me human. And that's more valuable than any amount of power."
Tears prick at my eyes again. "I love you."
"I love you too." He pulls me closer, careful of both our injuries. "And I'm going to spend the rest of my life proving that I can be the man you deserve."
We lie there in comfortable silence for a while, the afternoon sun streaming through the windows and warming the room. It feels surreal—this moment of peace after so much violence.
"What happens now?" I ask eventually. "What do we do?"
"Now?" He gives me a soft smile, softer than anything I've ever seen from him before. "Now we heal. We figure out what our life looks like together." He pauses. "And I teach you how to shoot."
I pull back to look at him. "What?"
"You're with a Bratvapakhannow." His expression is serious. "You need to know how to protect yourself. How to handle a weapon."
"You want to teach me to shoot?" I can't quite keep the disbelief out of my voice.
"I want you to be safe." He strokes my hair back from my face. "I want you to have every tool you need to survive."
It's such a practical, thoughtful gesture that it makes my chest ache. He's not trying to keep me helpless or dependent. He's trying to make me strong, give me agency in a world that's dangerous and unpredictable.
"Okay," I agree. I close my eyes, letting myself relax into his embrace. My shoulder still aches. My body is still recovering. But for the first time since this all started, I feel safe. I feel hopeful.
I feel like maybe, just maybe, we can make this work.
A billionaire's daughter and a Bratvapakhan. A kidnapping that became a love story. It's not the life I imagined for myself. It's darker, more dangerous, and more complicated than anything I could have planned.
But it's mine. And I'm choosing it with my eyes wide open. I know that whatever comes next—whatever challenges we face, whatever darkness we have to navigate—we'll face it together.
The war is over. The danger has passed. And we survived. We survived, and now we get to live.
That's the happiest ending I could have asked for.
EPILOGUE: LIESL
One Year Later
The morning light streams through the floor-to-ceiling windows of my Manhattan apartment as I stand at the window with my coffee, and feel something I at one point never thought I'd feel again.
Peace.
I'm back where I lived before Andrei, back in my comfortable, cozy apartment that's full of all the things I love. And sometimes, he comes here, too.
That's part of how we've been doing this. We go out on dates. Sometimes I go back to his place, sometimes he comes back to mine. We've tried to make the last year of dating as normal as possible, while I've figured out what I want my life to be.
My father went to prison, after the fallout of the Volkov situation. As a result, all of my inheritance and trust fund was turned over to me, since his estate could no longer dole it out the way it had been before. And I used a portion of it to launch a non profit, an organization dedicated to helping victims of kidnapping and human trafficking rebuild their lives.
Andrei has his empire. I have this. And he's contributed to it, too—a sort of penance, I think, for how our relationship started out. But he's a silent partner. He's donated money, but he doesn't try to control it or insert himself into my decisions or demand to approve my choices. And he's proud of me. I can see it in his eyes when I tell him about the women we've helped.
He's learned to let me breathe. And he's learned that I won't leave or vanish just because he gives me space, and something awful won't happen to me.
My phone buzzes on the counter. I pick it up and smile at the message.
Andrei:Dinner tonight? My place or yours?
Yours, I type back.I'll bring wine.
The response comes immediately.I'll cook.
