“Nothing I can’t handle.” He sets the phone down, attention shifting fully to me. That focus still makes my breath catch. “The Brighton Beach territory is secure. Felix confirmed it this morning.”
“So it’s done.”
“It’s done.”
The finality should feel like victory. Mostly it just feels like relief that the threat is neutralized, that I can stop checking shadows every time we leave the penthouse.
Dimitri stands, crosses to me with that predatory grace that’s become familiar. His hand finds my waist, pulling me close.
“You’re thinking too hard,” he observes.
“Yeah, I do that lately.”
“I know. It’s one of the things I love about you.” He kisses my temple, the gesture casual and affectionate in ways that would have shocked me a year ago. “Also one of the things that terrifies me.”
“Good. You should be terrified.”
“Trust me, I am.”
We stand like that for a moment, looking out over the city that nearly destroyed us both. Manhattan glitters below, indifferent to the violence that shapes it, to the power that moves through its streets like blood through veins.
I’ve learned to navigate those currents. Learned which buttons to push and which to avoid, when to speak and when silence carries more weight than words.
The Bratva wives don’t dismiss me anymore. They invite me to functions, ask my opinion on matters they once would have excluded me from. Some of it is Dimitri’s influence—his wife commands respect by proximity. But some of it I’ve earned myself.
Elena Volkov still hates me, but her hatred carries grudging respect now. We navigate the same events with careful civility, both understanding that open conflict serves no one.
“The community meeting is tonight,” Dimitri says, breaking the silence. “Are you ready?”
“As ready as I’ll ever be.”
The Williamsburg project finally broke ground last month. Tonight’s meeting is designed to address concerns, present updated plans, demonstrate that we’re invested in the neighborhood’s future instead of just its real estate value.
We. Somewhere along the way, Dimitri’s empire became ours. His projects, my strategic input. His muscle, my softertouch with communities that respond better to someone who doesn’t represent generations of Bratva violence.
It works surprisingly well.
“You’ll be perfect,” he says with certainty I don’t entirely feel.
“You’re biased.”
“Extremely. It doesn’t make me wrong.”
I turn in his arms, studying the face I’ve memorized in a thousand different lights and moods. The laugh lines that appear when I make him genuinely smile, not the sharp edge he shows the rest of the world. The way his eyes soften when he looks at me, like I’m something precious he still can’t quite believe he gets to keep.
“I love you,” I say, because I can now. He’s earned it through a thousand small moments of trust rebuilt brick by painful brick.
“I know.” His mouth curves. “I love you too.”
The confession still feels momentous every time. We don’t say it casually, don’t throw it around like it’s meaningless.
When Dimitri tells me he loves me, I know he means it with the same intensity he brings to everything—absolute, consuming, dangerous in its depth.
My phone buzzes. It’s Diana, checking in before tonight’s meeting.
You nervous?
Terrified,I type back.
