Love.
I shut the thought down the moment it forms.
He must see something in my face change because his expression shifts, softening in a way that steals my breath. His arms tighten around me. One hand slides up my spine, cradling the back of my head as his fingers sink into my hair. The other spreads wide against my lower back, using it to keep our bodies pressed flush together.
“I said…” His voice is rough. He swallows, throat bobbing, then lowers his forehead to mine again, his breath warm against my lips. “I… love you.”
The words are so quiet, I almost miss them.
But my body doesn’t.
They hit me like a blow straight to my sternum, knocking the air from my lungs. My vision blurs instantly, not from shock alone but from the sheer weight of the words I never expected to hear.
“W–What?” I whisper.
His expression pinches, bracing for impact. Like he’s already decided he’ll weather whatever pain comes next if I reject him. “I love you, Alina.”
Tears prick, hot and sudden, behind my eyes, spilling over before I can stop them. I shake my head, disbelief temporarily robbing my sanity. My voice quavers despite my best effort. “Do you actually mean that? Or are you saying it because of what happened? Because you feel responsible for me after last night?”
“No.” The answer comes immediately, firm and certain. “None of that.”
I search his face desperately, looking for the lies. For the familiar armor to slide back into place as he distances himself.
There’s nothing.
Just him, raw and terrifyingly honest.
“I mean it,” he repeats, softer now.
The last of my defenses shatter instantly.
A sound tears out of my chest before I can stop it, raw and broken and far too big to contain as I surge forward and throw my arms around him. I cling to him like he’s the only solid thing left in a world that’s spent months crumbling beneath my feet.
He reacts instantly.
His arms lock around me hard enough that it steals my breath, anchoring me against his chest. One hand cradles the back of my head, fingers threading through my hair, holding me there while the other splays across my lower back, keeping me pressed tight against him. His mouth ghosts over my hair, and I feel the tremor in him when he exhales.
I cry into his shoulder, the sobs ugly and unrestrained as my body finally gives in after weeks of holding myself together from sheer will alone. The tears ache as they come, wrought with everything I haven’t allowed myself to feel fully—my mother, my father, the gun, the blood, the choice, the fear of losing Sasha, the terror of loving him at all.
They twist together until I can’t tell where one ends and the other begins. Until it all feels like too much and not nearly enough at the same time.
He doesn’t tell me to stop. He doesn’t try to fix it and make it go away. He just holds me and lets me come undone in his arms like this is exactly where I’m meant to fall apart.
Eventually, when the storm eases, the sobs fade into shuddering breaths.
I pull back just enough to look at him.
My hands slide up to frame his face, thumbs brushing gently beneath his eyes where moisture has gathered. Where he’s tried and failed to hide that this has affected him to. Seeing him like this, stripped of control and the certainty that I’d once believed was his second skin, makes my chest ache in a completely different way.
“I love you too,” I whisper. The words feel terrifying and inevitable all at once.
His breath stutters.
For a moment, he can’t look at me. His eyes squeeze shut as he exhales. His hands tighten at my back. When he opens them again, it nearly undoes me.
There’s no steel in them now. Vulnerability has replaced the cool detachment I’m so used to seeing, leaving him bare and exposed.
“Really?” he asks quietly. The word trembles just slightly.
